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Re: Group Copyright



On Fri, 20 Jul 2001, Joseph Carter wrote:

>On Fri, Jul 20, 2001 at 01:53:30AM -0600, John Galt wrote:
>> >How then should free software projects handle Copyright?  Advice would be
>> >appreciated.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to ever worry about this.
>>
>> As a necessary evil :)  Seriously, the only real way to deal with it is
>> to do what is the most comfortable thing for the group.  Imposition of
>> solutions by fiat is not going to win any support, and may very well lose
>> talent permanently.
>
>I think you misjudge the intent here..  When this has come up before, one
>group was unsure how to handle it.  The group in question is much smaller
>now (for the moment) but includes some of the same people from the last
>group who are still totally lost as to how to do it properly.  Best the
>last group came up with was...
>
>Copyright (C) whenver   contributors of such-and-such group
>			See the file readme.foo for details
>
>...with that file containing everyone's name, contact information, etc,
>for all major contributions.  ("major" defined as anything you as the
>author of the contributor of the code deem to be - with the singular
>exception of one person who contributed the unrolling of a pair of for
>loops which iterated through three-float arrays, which we didn't want
>anyway.  But I digress..)
>
>Anyway, I'm not sure if that is any better than just listing 30 lines of
>names.  In fact, I suspect it's worse.

I can see where you are going.  The alternatives I see are pretty much
five:

1) the list of thirty names
2) the group/readme
3) list two or three primary contacts (the Berne riff kind of means that
all thirty still have standing to sue).
4) incorporate (some places incorporation requires some small number
[anywhere from 1 to 5] of incorporators, and a few bucks to the state:
Idaho requires one and $30, for example).
5) assign rights to a trusted third party or a third party that all agree
should recieve them.

Bounce some of these off them and see if anybody has any "that won't work,
but if we change it to this..." ideas.  I'd be interested in how your
group finally solves this one.

>

-- 
The Internet must be a medium for it is neither Rare nor Well done!
<a href="mailto:galt@inconnu.isu.edu";>John Galt </a>



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