Re: [Firebird-docs] Copyright

[Paul V. <pa...@vi...>]

Hi Robert,

> I think the current copyright regime for the docs looks a bit
> unmanageable. I would have something like this:
>
> * By contributing to the documentation project, you are
> automatically granting the firebird foundation a non-exclusive,
> perpetual license to use it however they wish.
>
> * The foundation agrees to release your contribution to the world
> under a creative commons attribution, sharealike license, and may
> release it under other licenses in future
> (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/1.0/)
>
> * In certain cases, you may contribute material that you do not have
> full copyright ownership over. In these cases, you must mark the
> contribution with an XML tag so that it can be identified by the
> foundation, and they will be able to abide by the license terms. The
> cases are as follows:
>  - Postgresql documentation license
>  - (add others)

The Foundation neither runs nor owns Firebird, so if already you
want to relinquish the copyrights to your work, it should be to the
Firebird Project. But I don't think it's necessary, or even useful:
anything you place on SourceForge MUST be Open Source. That alone is
enough for the project (or anybody else, for that matter) to use it;
not in every way they please, but at least in every way that makes
sense for the further development of the project and its
documentation. All this can be done easily and legally, while you
still retain the copyright to your work.

If you don't include a copyright notice with your work, I suppose the
"default" project OS license (IPL) applies, but I don't know if this
is legally watertight. It just seems kinda logical to me.


Greetings,
Paul Vinkenoog, (C) 1959