Dan Boresjo wrote:
> Can anyone here tell me what kind of organisation mozilla.org is?
> Is it a corporation, association, charity or whatever? In what
> state/nation is it registered?
mozilla.org is not a formal legal organization, and has never been one.
The concept of "mozilla.org" as an entity was originally invented to
provide an independent identity for the Mozilla project, but this was on
an informal basis. Some of the people associated with mozilla.org (i.e.,
people listed on the mozilla.org staff page) are Netscape employees,
others are not.
As for the mozilla.org web site, CVS repository, and related systems,
they are hosted at Netscape on Netscape-owned systems.
> I tried searching the www.mozilla.org website for registration details
> in the hope of finding a a constitution, articles of association or
> incorporation etc and found nothing. Is it then just a netscape
> operation - ie when I see a copyright notice identifying mozilla.org
> as IP owner is that (legally) the same as Netscape Corporation?
Not really. Copyrighted materials posted to the mozilla.org site are
copyright by the individuals who created them or by their employers (if
the people in question are working under a work-for-hire arrangement
which is fairly common). So, for example, materials posted by Netscape
employees would normally be copyright by Netscape, materials posted by
IBM employees would be copyright by IBM, materials posted by J. Random
Hacker (acting as an individual) would be copyright by J. Random Hacker
as an individual, and so on.
Unlike some other projects (like the various GNU projects sponsored by
the Free Software Foundation), the Mozilla project has never required
contributors to assign their copyrights to a separate organization. So
the various parts of the Mozilla code are copyright by whomever created
them; in particular, Netscape does not "own" (in the sense of holding
copyright to) Mozilla code that was developed outside Netscape.
Frank
P.S. As usual when I comment on legal-related matters, the standard
disclosure: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. Also, I am
speaking for myself and not necessarily for mozilla.org.
--
Frank Hecker
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
