Re: SCO identifies code?

["Paul Smith" <pausmith@nortelnetworks.com>]

%% Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> writes:

  bs> From what I've read on the FSF website their position is that they won't
  bs> accept any submissions unless they are:
  bs> a) public domain
  bs> b) copyright released to the FSF

You mean either (a) or (b), of course.  That's correct.

  bs> I don't know the specifics I haven't given them code, that's what
  bs> they say in their docs. Now maybe they keep the copyright and give
  bs> the programmer a license to do whatever they want,

Yes, that's exactly it.  They give you a non-restricted license to use
the code you wrote any way you want.  But, you no longer have copyright
to it.

  bs> The reason being that if they don't own all the code on their
  bs> software they believe it can undermine any possible court
  bs> case. That is a big reason why GNU emacs won't accept some code
  bs> from Xemacs because they won't sign over the copyright.

Not quite: it's true that they won't accept XEmacs code due to copyright
issues, but I don't think it's a matter so much of XEmacs saying they
won't do it, as that in the XEmacs code it's not clear who has copyright
and tracking down all the people that _might_ have copyright and getting
them to sign has proved too daunting for the ROI.

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <psmith@nortelnetworks.com>   HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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   These are my opinions---Nortel Networks takes no responsibility for them.