Re: [Firebird-docs] Copyright

[Helen B. <he...@tp...>]

At 01:19 AM 11/03/2004 +0100, you wrote:

>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.

Don't forget that open-sourcing your work is *not* the same as relinquishing your copyright (something that seems to have eluded the riddled brains of dear Darl and his family).  If you put a copyright notice on anything that you wrote as original work, the IDPL announces to the world that you are the copyright owner.  Open Source licensing reinforces personal copyright, it doesn't override it.  What it does is give the public implicit permission to use and modify your work and publish the modifications under the same terms.  The work that the contributor adds is copyright to the contributor.

You are *allowed* to relinquish your own copyright, but you certainly are not obliged to. 

btw, if you're not squeamish and you want to read a crackup, go here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/30/36116.html

Helen
(c) 2004 <g>