Re: [Bodington-developers] Bodington licence

[Alistair Y. <ali...@sm...>]

> No, because Leeds don't own the copyright.  The original contributing
> bodies do - at least Leeds, UHI and Oxford
is it the institutions or the developers who own the copyright on the 
code the developers contributed?

if it 's the former, then presumably all we need do is ply our 
respective pointy haired ones with drink and get them to sign on the 
dotted line.

if it's the latter...

Alistair



On 27 May 2005, at 11:11, Peter Crowther wrote:

>> From: Adam Marshall
>> My understanding of the Bod licence (based on hearsay and
>> chats with his
>> Jonness) is that everybody gives copyright of their code to
>> Leeds Uni and
>> then Leeds commit to making the code available to all to use.
>
> Here's my understanding.  I am not a lawyer, your mileage my vary, do
> not pass Go, et cetera.
>
> Intellectual Property assignment isn't the same as releasing software
> under a common license.  Unless (say) Oxford has signed a formal IP
> agreement with Leeds giving Leeds IP ownership of any WebLearn changes
> to Bodington, those changes are merely released under a common license 
> -
> the Bodington Software License version 1.0 (BSL1).  Oxford still own 
> the
> IP but, as they have released under BSL1, any other organisation can 
> use
> the Oxford contributions under the terms of the license under which 
> they
> were released - namely BSL2.
>
> If Leeds change the license for their work to the Bodington Software
> License version 2.0 (BSL2), that doesn't alter the fact that Oxford's
> contributions were released under BSL1.  Oxford can state that they are
> willing for the contributions to be released under BSL2 (or a
> disjunctive license of BSL1 and BSL2, more likely); or Oxford can
> formally assign its IP to Leeds, at which point Leeds can do as it
> wishes; or Oxford can stay silent and try to sting a licensee later who
> naively uses the code under a provision of BSL2 that is not in BSL1.
> Repeat for all contributors to Bodington that own IP.
>
> I suspect it would be very unlikely that Oxford would wish to sting
> someone in this way; it would also be expensive to pursue through the
> courts with a very uncertain outcome, as open source licenses have not
> been tested in the English courts so there is no case law.  I suspect
> this would be the same for all the other contributors to Bodington.
> This suspicion would probably be sufficient for many organisations to
> download and use Bodington.  If we feel that the unclear situation 
> would
> not put off any organisation - or if real-world organisations will be
> using the system within the terms of BSL1 and so will not infringe
> anyway - then we don't care.
>
>> Doesn't that
>> mean that as Leeds own copyright, then can do what they like with the
>> licence?
>
> No, because Leeds don't own the copyright.  The original contributing
> bodies do - at least Leeds, UHI and Oxford, unless there are IP
> assignment documents of which I am unaware.  Melandra's previous
> contributions have been made through IP assignment to the PEVE Unit at
> University of Manchester, then (I believe) through IP assignment from
> PEVE to Leeds; so the IP situation for those contributions is clear.
>
> 		- Peter
>
>
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