Frank Hecker wrote:
> 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.
Taking the opportunity to ask a question I've been wondering about: what
about NPL? Does NPL own that source regardless of its contributors?
--
H�kan Waara ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
