On Mar 10, 2010, at 4:32 PM, Peter Saint-Andre wrote: > "This [list|chatroom|website|event] is an official venue of the XMPP > Standards Foundation (XSF) and the XSF considers any statement made in > this venue to be a contribution to the XSF standards process. By > participating in this venue, you agree that your contributions can be > incorporated into XSF specifications and copyrighted by the XSF in > accordance with the XSF's Patent and Copyright Policy as defined by > XEP-0280."
Though I understand the intent, and support the intent, I'm a bit concerned that the language here may not be adequate to support that intent. But I rather not play amateur lawyer. I strong recommend the XSF run this through counsel. In particular, I'm concerned by the phrase "your contributions can be .. copyrighted by the XSF". My understanding is that copyright in any work is owned by the author unless properly assigned to another party. Though there are cases where such assignment occurs as a matter of a law (e.g., employee to employer "work for hire" assignments), I do not believe any such assignment is applicable to in this situation. I think what you want to state is that by making a contribution you grant the XSF a license to use the contribution. Note that in the IETF, authors retain their copyright unless they sign an assignment agreement. But IETF contributions always involve a license grant. Regards, Kurt
