Re: RFS: kernelcheck
Lars Wirzenius wrote: la, 2009-06-20 kello 08:56 +0200, David Paleino kirjoitti: Is material copyrightable under a nickname, instead of a realname? Yes, in all jurisdictions I am aware of. It's called a pseudonym and tends to be explicitly recognized by copyright laws. but I don't think is is usable in open source. Editors/publishers are required to know the real name, which is impossible on copyleft (per definition anybody could become publisher, and the program must still be distributable) ciao cate -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org writes: but I don't think is is usable in open source. Editors/publishers are required to know the real name, Why are editors/publishers required to know the real name? Maybe this is a jurisdiction-dependent issue? I don't know of any such constraint in the US, but I can't speak for other countries. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
Jan Hauke Rahm i...@jhr-online.de writes: Speaking for germany (as I already did in this thread), you have to disclose your identity in court to make use of your civil rights. IOW you cannot lay claim to your copyright if you are not identified as the copyright holder. A pseudonym is then only helping (AFAIK again) if this pseudonym is accepted by government which means official registering. Practically, I do see problems in the US, too: do you think a US court would grant you copyright if the only statement in a file were (C) 2009, cate? Explicit copyright notice is not required in any country that's a signatory to Berne. The only difference the copyright notice makes in the US is in what statutory damages you can claim. So yes, this wouldn't pose any challenge to copyright in the US. You would, of course, have to prove that you're the copyright holder, but you'd have to do that no matter what the copyright statement said. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 09:22:17AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Jan Hauke Rahm i...@jhr-online.de writes: Practically, I do see problems in the US, too: do you think a US court would grant you copyright if the only statement in a file were (C) 2009, cate? Explicit copyright notice is not required in any country that's a signatory to Berne. The only difference the copyright notice makes in the US is in what statutory damages you can claim. So yes, this wouldn't pose any challenge to copyright in the US. You would, of course, have to prove that you're the copyright holder, but you'd have to do that no matter what the copyright statement said. Okay, I stand corrected. A real name in a copyright statement is required if you actually care about your copyright. By using your real name as known to the government it's pretty easy to prove being the same person while a nick name isn't. Hauke signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 09:02:59AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote: Giacomo A. Catenazzi c...@debian.org writes: but I don't think is is usable in open source. Editors/publishers are required to know the real name, Why are editors/publishers required to know the real name? Maybe this is a jurisdiction-dependent issue? I don't know of any such constraint in the US, but I can't speak for other countries. Speaking for germany (as I already did in this thread), you have to disclose your identity in court to make use of your civil rights. IOW you cannot lay claim to your copyright if you are not identified as the copyright holder. A pseudonym is then only helping (AFAIK again) if this pseudonym is accepted by government which means official registering. Practically, I do see problems in the US, too: do you think a US court would grant you copyright if the only statement in a file were (C) 2009, cate? Hauke signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
Jan Hauke Rahm i...@jhr-online.de writes: Practically, I do see problems in the US, too: do you think a US court would grant you copyright if the only statement in a file were (C) 2009, cate? The copyright office has a webpage that explains some of these issues at http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl101.html: A pseudonym or pen name may be used by an author of a copyrighted work. A work is pseudonymous if the author is identified on copies or phonorecords of that work by a fictitious name. Nicknames or other diminutive forms of one’s legal name are not considered fictitious. As is the case with other names, the pseudonym itself is not protected by copyright. If you are writing under a pseudonym but wish to be identified by your legal name in the records of the Copyright Office, you should give your legal name and your pseudonym when filling out your application. Check the box labeled “Pseudonymous” if the author is identified on copies of the work only under a fictitious name and if the work is not made for hire. Give the pseudonym on the associated line. If you are writing under a pseudonym but do not wish to have your identity revealed in the records of the Copyright Office, you should give your pseudonym and identify it as such. You may leave blank the space for the name of the author. If the author’s name is given, it will be made part of the online public records produced by the Copyright Office and will be accessible via the Internet. This information cannot be removed later from those public records. You must, however, identify the citizenship or domicile of the author. In no case should you omit the name of the copyright claimant. You may use a pseudonym in completing the claimant space, but you should also be aware that if a copyright is held under a fictitious name, business dealings involving that property may raise questions of ownership of the copyright property. You should consult an attorney for legal advice on these matters. If the author is identified in the records of the Copyright Office, the term of the copyright is the author’s life plus 70 years. If the author is not identified in the records of the Copyright Office, the term of copyright is 95 years from publication of the work or 120 years from its creation, whichever term expires first. If the author’s identity is later revealed in the records of the Copyright Office, the copyright term then becomes the author’s life plus 70 years. -- Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. --Ovid (43 BC-18 AD) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
[moving to debian-devel as this is a topic broader than debian-mentors] Master Kernel master.kernel.cont...@gmail.com writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: [To be likely to have your package sponsored,] You will need to identify yourself; “Master Kernel” is hardly likely to be your real name. Is there *any way* that I don't have to disclose this information? I was contacted by a packager a while ago when this issue came up. He said it would be possible to work around it. Well, if that person says it can be done, you'd be best to ask them for the details. I am all in favour of allowing people their anonymity, but the flip side of that is anonymity is directly at odds with reputation: reputation requires consistent use of an identity. If you want to operate with Debian you are operating in a society built primarily on trust and reputation. For that, we require identity to which that reputation and trust can be associated. Also, your expressive work is (whether you choose it or not) subject to copyright, and you as a legal entity are the copyright holder; for Debian to make use of your work under copyright law, we take on the burden of assuring we have license to do so. I'm not an ftpmaster, but I would be surprised if they want to take the risk of distributing works for which the copyright provenance is essentially unknown. I would imagine many prospective sponsors feel the same way. I don't know, though, so I'm inviting further input. -- \ “Even if the voices in my head are not real, they have pretty | `\ good ideas.” —anonymous | _o__) | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 16:25:20 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: [moving to debian-devel as this is a topic broader than debian-mentors] Master Kernel master.kernel.cont...@gmail.com writes: Ben Finney ben+deb...@benfinney.id.au writes: [To be likely to have your package sponsored,] You will need to identify yourself; “Master Kernel” is hardly likely to be your real name. Is there *any way* that I don't have to disclose this information? I was contacted by a packager a while ago when this issue came up. He said it would be possible to work around it. Well, if that person says it can be done, you'd be best to ask them for the details. It was me, IIRC. And no, I didn't package kernelcheck anymore. I based my statement on the fact that the john package has Solar Designer (whis is NOT the realname) as copyright holder (and that's in main) http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/j/john/current/copyright [..] Also, your expressive work is (whether you choose it or not) subject to copyright, and you as a legal entity are the copyright holder; for Debian to make use of your work under copyright law, we take on the burden of assuring we have license to do so. I'm not an ftpmaster, but I would be surprised if they want to take the risk of distributing works for which the copyright provenance is essentially unknown. I would imagine many prospective sponsors feel the same way. I don't know, though, so I'm inviting further input. I didn't consider this aspect, at the time :( Is material copyrightable under a nickname, instead of a realname? The same question applies to work © by a team (an example involving me directly -- bash-completion) Kindly, David -- . ''`. Debian maintainer | http://wiki.debian.org/DavidPaleino : :' : Linuxer #334216 --|-- http://www.hanskalabs.net/ `. `'` GPG: 1392B174 | http://snipr.com/qa_page `- 2BAB C625 4E66 E7B8 450A C3E1 E6AA 9017 1392 B174 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
la, 2009-06-20 kello 08:56 +0200, David Paleino kirjoitti: Is material copyrightable under a nickname, instead of a realname? Yes, in all jurisdictions I am aware of. It's called a pseudonym and tends to be explicitly recognized by copyright laws. The history of literature is full of people writing under pseudonyms, with their real names unknown (and sometimes hotly debated), at least part of the time. For example, Mark Twain, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot. (Obviously all those realnames are now known. Else we wouldn't necessarily even know they were pseudonyms.) It doesn't even have to sound like a real name, see Jane Austen as A Lady. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudonym#Literary_pen_names .) Debian has traditionally not allowed upload rights (or DD status) to people whose legal name is not known. The reason is that a lot of power comes with upload rights, and we want/need some accountability. If you abuse your power, we need to know whom to blame. This does not require giving up anonymity to contribute to Debian, but it limits the things that you can do. For example, patches are certainly accepted from people whose identity we haven't checked; the uploader, whom we do know, is responsible for checking that the patch is OK. As far as checking that it's legal to accept the patch, with regards to copyright, we tend to take that at face value. If there is a reason to suspect that something is wrong, we take action, but we do not require identity checks and copyright assignments or other legal documents to accept a patch. And that's as it should be. (We do keep track, via the BTS and debian/changelog especially, where a patch came from. This is useful in case we later need to track where a bad patch came from.) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 10:21:04 +0300, Lars Wirzenius wrote: la, 2009-06-20 kello 08:56 +0200, David Paleino kirjoitti: Is material copyrightable under a nickname, instead of a realname? Yes, in all jurisdictions I am aware of. It's called a pseudonym and tends to be explicitly recognized by copyright laws. Ok. [..] Debian has traditionally not allowed upload rights (or DD status) to people whose legal name is not known. The reason is that a lot of power comes with upload rights, and we want/need some accountability. If you abuse your power, we need to know whom to blame. Now that I read Ben's mail again, I see that his concern is also about the Maintainer field. I suppose that should be a real name too then? Or is it ok having a pseudonym because it's the sponsor taking responsibility for the upload? (given that using this pseudonym he won't ever become a DD/DM) Kindly, David -- . ''`. Debian maintainer | http://wiki.debian.org/DavidPaleino : :' : Linuxer #334216 --|-- http://www.hanskalabs.net/ `. `'` GPG: 1392B174 | http://snipr.com/qa_page `- 2BAB C625 4E66 E7B8 450A C3E1 E6AA 9017 1392 B174 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat Jun 20 09:28, David Paleino wrote: Now that I read Ben's mail again, I see that his concern is also about the Maintainer field. I suppose that should be a real name too then? Or is it ok having a pseudonym because it's the sponsor taking responsibility for the upload? (given that using this pseudonym he won't ever become a DD/DM) Sponsors take responsibility for the upload, so this should be fine. Also, going back to the note about reputation; There's no reason reputation can't be associated with a pseudonym or with a GPG key attached to a pseudonym. Anyway, I have no idea whether my sponsorees who I have never met and haven't gone through ID check are using their real names. If I don't care about that, why should I care about someone who is using a pseudonym that doesn't look like a real name. Matt -- Matthew Johnson signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:04:32 +0100, Matthew Johnson wrote: On Sat Jun 20 09:28, David Paleino wrote: Now that I read Ben's mail again, I see that his concern is also about the Maintainer field. I suppose that should be a real name too then? Or is it ok having a pseudonym because it's the sponsor taking responsibility for the upload? (given that using this pseudonym he won't ever become a DD/DM) Sponsors take responsibility for the upload, so this should be fine. Ok. Also, going back to the note about reputation; There's no reason reputation can't be associated with a pseudonym or with a GPG key attached to a pseudonym. How do you sign such a key? You'd break the web of trust, if you don't check at least one government-issued document having a photo. And I can't make people associate my GPG key uid hanska with my document saying David Paleino -- even if they know that *I* am hanska (IRC, website, [..]). And having a key not signed by anyone seems rather useless :) (/me remembers his problems getting a GPG signature...) Anyway, I have no idea whether my sponsorees who I have never met and haven't gone through ID check are using their real names. If I don't care about that, why should I care about someone who is using a pseudonym that doesn't look like a real name. That's the point, haven't gone through ID check. He could well maintain his package in Debian, just because he's not responsible for the upload. David -- . ''`. Debian maintainer | http://wiki.debian.org/DavidPaleino : :' : Linuxer #334216 --|-- http://www.hanskalabs.net/ `. `'` GPG: 1392B174 | http://snipr.com/qa_page `- 2BAB C625 4E66 E7B8 450A C3E1 E6AA 9017 1392 B174 signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat Jun 20 10:19, David Paleino wrote: Also, going back to the note about reputation; There's no reason reputation can't be associated with a pseudonym or with a GPG key attached to a pseudonym. How do you sign such a key? You'd break the web of trust, if you don't check at least one government-issued document having a photo. And I can't make people associate my GPG key uid hanska with my document saying David Paleino -- even if they know that *I* am hanska (IRC, website, [..]). And having a key not signed by anyone seems rather useless :) (/me remembers his problems getting a GPG signature...) Why would I sign the key, I don't sign the keys of people I sponsor. I'm not saying that I've checked the key belongs to the person it claims to, just that it's probably the same person each time and therefore reputation can build up around it. In the same way that reputation builds up around the people who post under their real name in Debian forums, but aren't DDs and haven't gone through ID check. Anyway, I have no idea whether my sponsorees who I have never met and haven't gone through ID check are using their real names. If I don't care about that, why should I care about someone who is using a pseudonym that doesn't look like a real name. That's the point, haven't gone through ID check. He could well maintain his package in Debian, just because he's not responsible for the upload. Yeah, that was my point (-: If he's happy to be sponsored all the time, he can be maintainer or upstream. Matt -- Matthew Johnson signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:21:04AM +0300, Lars Wirzenius wrote: la, 2009-06-20 kello 08:56 +0200, David Paleino kirjoitti: Is material copyrightable under a nickname, instead of a realname? Yes, in all jurisdictions I am aware of. It's called a pseudonym and tends to be explicitly recognized by copyright laws. At least in germany there is the possibility of having a pseudonym registered which means it's even printed on your governmental ID. IANAL but until today I always assumed that pseudonyms are only of legal use if they are registered that way. Hauke signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: RFS: kernelcheck
David Paleino d.pale...@gmail.com writes: On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:04:32 +0100, Matthew Johnson wrote: Also, going back to the note about reputation; There's no reason reputation can't be associated with a pseudonym or with a GPG key attached to a pseudonym. How do you sign such a key? You'd break the web of trust, if you don't check at least one government-issued document having a photo. The web of trust isn't about governments; it's about signing the keys of people whose identity you've verified. Governments are just a convenient proxy to let us expand the web of trust to people whom no other DD knows in person. I would happily sign the key of someone with a pseudonym if I had personal knowledge that the person who's key I was signing was the same person who was widely known by that pseudonym on-line. It would require, in general, a personal friendship or similar detailed knowledge, but it's possible. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
