Re: Bug#677013: RFS: time
On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 12:54:10AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Bart Martens <bartm@debian.org> writes:
>
> > That "authors" are not the same as "copyright holders" is simply a fact
> > regardless of what debian-policy states. For example, the programmer
> > who wrote some software can be the "author" and the company the
> > programmer was working for can be the "copyright holder".
>
> This is the part I don't find this at all obvious. To me, it's the
> difference between referring to the collective entity or disassembling it
> into its constituent parts. Either are usually considered correct; one
> could say that the Free Software Foundation is the author of GNU time, or
> that several specific volunteers for the Free Software Foundation are the
> authors of GNU time, and be correct either way.
I don't see this as "the collective entity" and "constituent parts". Being an
author doesn't make one a copyright holder. And being a copyright holder
doesn't make one an author. The terms "author" and "copyright holder" are
different terms with different meanings.
Of course, some/many/most authors are also copyright holders of their works,
but not always. Authors and copyright holders of the same works can be
different parties with different interests.
>
> It sounds like to you the word "author" implies an individual human being
> always, and isn't correct to use about a collective entity like a
> volunteer project, non-profit umbrella, or company.
Whether an "author" is always an "individual human being" is, in my opinion,
not relevant in this context.
Other example : books. It is very common with books that the author and the
copyright holder are not the same person/organization.
Regards,
Bart Martens
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