At 11:44 PM +0200 on 8/12/99, M. Uli Kusterer wrote:
>>Nope. GNU has you assign the copyright to them. They have legal ownership
>>of it.
>>
>>I think you'll find this better clarified -- and probably your complaint
>>rectified -- once you read those 800 messages.
>
>Anthony,
>
> I don't see it, sorry. Could you explain to me what's better with having
>one person hold all copyright than using CopyLeft?
First off, they are the same thing! Someone ultimately makes a derived
work. I believe the under copyright law, a derived work gets its own
copyright.
Second, we need one person to make one product to call OPENCARD. A
different person can make one product called OtherCard. But we should _not_
have five people making something different under the same name.
Immagine if all you had the refer to everything with was "thing." Or
imagine if five different things were called a "toaster". It impedes
understanding, it impedes communication, and it creates confusion.
Consider the mess we'd be in if five people each wrote something under the
same name. I might get mail like this:
Hey! Just wanted to report that when I go to the file menu in
OPENCARD, and select "Get Stack Info" and then click on the
"More" button a few times it crashes. The stdlog is attached.
I then reply:
But there is no Get Stack Info menu item in the file menu! Do you
have the latest version?
He replies:
Yes, I just checked the Witness of Teachtext page, it's the latest.
I then reply:
Doh! That's a *different* OPENCARD...
The mess would be quite big. Consider what happens when someone types in
OPENCARD on AltaVista and comes up with an OPENCARD home page -- for a
different version of OPENCARD.
>
>>> But I would prefer, if the sources were required to be distributed freely,
>>>and if the engine itself (i.e. the "HyperCard application" of OpenCard) was
>>>allowed to be copied freely. If someone compiled in proprietary code,
>>>he/she would have to ship a sharedLib and headers along, or make it a
>>>standalone.
>>
>>Why can't they ship source?
>
> They could, but then it wouldn't be proprietary code anymore and we
>wouldn't have that problem. What I'm saying is that if people integrate
>code they don't want to share, they still should be obliged to ship along
>the remaining code and offer a means to recompile it.
What about the things distributed on floppy?
>
>>We are still allowed to fork. Please see the organizational proposal, draft
>>four.
>>
>>That is my definitive statement.
>
> But when one person owns the rights, we'd have to make sure that person
>doesn't in some way mis-use them. OTOH, if *everyone* owns the rights,
>there's no mis-use possible. If one person has all the rights, we'd need
>that person to sign a contract saying that he/she will keep it availale to
>us, or else we'd suddenly get sued for using their code.
The MAINTAINER puts it out under a irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual
licence -- LICENSE -- and if we use it according to that licence, there is
not a dang thing he can do.
> I appreciate your efforts, but remember ownership of the code has nothing
>to do with ownership of the name. The OpenCard name will be owned by us,
>and only us, just like the "Interpreter" name will be owned by you
>(although ... I don't think this generic word can be trademarked properly).
>The code should be free, the name should be owned by the maintainer or this
>list, whatever can be achieved more safely and easily.
Ok. Do you just want PD with a nice trademark on the name?
If so, I'll agree to it.
>
>>Read the proposal. It is a "copyleft" licence (though not a virus, like the
>>FPL varients).
>
> No, it isn't. You transfer all the rights to one person and have that one
>person stand for the freedom of the source.
You _don't_ transfer any rights to him. He has rights over a seperate work
-- seperate from the filesystem, from the interpreter, from the UI, etc. --
a work derived from those. All you do is allow him to use your work.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but is not a derived work a
seperate work and a seperate copyright from the origonal work(s)?
>To me it seems as if this is
>too dangerous and complicated. It's like the problem with not having the
>different branches in a state. Prove to me it's not dangerous and I'm on.
Hell, having a state is dangerous, no matter how many branches it has. (Uh,
oh, here we go with philosophy, again!)
>
>>Copyleft is ownership -- it used the copyright system to allow others to
>>modify it.
>
> Yes. But why transfer the rights to a maintainer when you give them up
>immediately after that? We'd better just have anyone who submits something
>sign a contract that they irrevocably grant everyone to change/use the code
>and derivates of it, and the compiled version, giving the code isn't sold.
>This would be much easier if there's no loophole in the law that prevents
>this.
They have to give an irrevocable license. As the proposal states: "LICENSE
shall be perpetual, non-exclusive, and irrevocable."
>>In other words, make the whole thing public domain?
>>That could be done, but then we'd really need a trademark to prevent the
>>40-different-OpenCard's scenario.
>
> We wouldn't necessarily need a trademark. If you use a name before the
>person who registeres the trademark uses it, you have the rights to it, and
>can claim the other person wants to misuse your brand name even without
>having registered it (I hope it's like that in the US, too). Trademarks
>just make it easier, but if you can prove you had it by June '84, even the
>person registering a trademark in July '85 can't take your name from you.
All a trademark means is putting a little (tm) after it. A registered
trademark is different.
And yes, I believe one can enforce it.
----
I've copied a few things out of Title 17:
A ''collective work'' is a work, such as a periodical issue,
anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of contributions,
constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are
assembled into a collective whole.
A ''compilation'' is a work formed by the collection and
assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected,
coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as
a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. The term
''compilation'' includes collective works.
<snip>
A ''derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more
preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement,
dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound
recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any
other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or
adapted. A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations,
elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent
an original work of authorship, is a ''derivative work''.
<snip>
The most important
point here is one that is commonly misunderstood today: copyright
in a ''new version'' covers only the material added by the later
author, and has no effect one way or the other on the copyright or
public domain status of the preexisting material.
Between them the terms ''compilations'' and ''derivative works''
which are defined in section 101 comprehend every copyrightable
work that employs preexisting material or data of any kind. There
is necessarily some overlapping between the two, but they basically
represent different concepts. A ''compilation'' results from a
process of selecting, bringing together, organizing, and arranging
previously existing material of all kinds, regardless of whether
the individual items in the material have been or ever could have
been subject to copyright. A ''derivative work,'' on the other
hand, requires a process of recasting, transforming, or adapting
''one or more preexisting works''; the ''preexisting work'' must
come within the general subject matter of copyright set forth in
section 102, regardless of whether it is or was ever copyrighted.
Hell, that thing is huge.
