On 9 Jun 2010, at 10:15, Anne van Kesteren wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 10:49:29 +0200, Bijan Parsia
<[email protected]> wrote:
Which is it? Unless Apple Computer, Inc., Mozilla Foundation, and
Opera Software ASA have transferred ownership, they remain the
owners (though they grant a liberal license, of course). If there
are bits that belong to the W3C, shouldn't *all* the copyright
owners be listed?
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Apr/0429.html
http://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/40318/htmlbg/results
"""If the group is agreeable to these proposals, Apple, Mozilla and
Opera will agree to arrange a non-exclusive copyright assignment to
the W3 Consortium for HTML5 specifications."""
What is a "non-exclusive copyright assignment"? That, to my
knowledge, makes no sense.
Copyright assignment sets up an owner of the rights. One may, of
course, license rights on a non-exclusive basis.
As it stands now, it seems like both Apple, Mozilla, and Opera on the
one hand and the W3C, on the other, are exclusive owners. (See their
copyright notices.) If they are joint owners, then I would expect the
copyright notices to be inclusive. If AMO are licensing to the W3C, I
would expect to see the W3C's notice list AMO as the owners.
Typically assignment is done in writing. (looking at <http://
producingoss.com/en/copyright-assignment.html>)
Also, that isn't how the W3C normally (at least from it's IP FAQ)
handles things. I.e., unlike the FSF, it doesn't ask for copyright
assignment.
Cheers,
Bijan.
P.S., Usual disclaimer's apply. The divergence in copyright notices
is certainly unusual.
