Re: [Firebird-docs] Copyright

[Robert J M. <rj...@ar...>]

Paul Vinkenoog wrote:

 >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.
 >
Legally speaking, what is the Firebird project? What does it own? I
thought that copyright on Firebird was with Borland + individual
contributors, all under the IPL. As we are already restricted to the
IPL, we can't do anything else other than continue with it. There is not
much to be gained by contributors assigning there code to anyone (unless
they assign to borland and it can then go into IB7). If code was
assigned to a foundation, then it may be possible to get an agreement
from a future Borland to re-license the code in some way that was
beneficial.

 >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.
 > 
 >
I want to avoid the situation of different pages of the docs being
copyrighted all over the place. It would be a nightmare if there were
ever an occasion in future where it mattered. One really obvious case I
can see is publishing the documentation in a book. The foundation might
want to put the documentation under a non-commercial license and then
publish, raising money for the foundation without allowing others to
publish it for free, but still allowing free use on the web etc.

IPL sounds like a silly license to use because it has an advertise
Borland clause "This product includes software developed by Borland
Software Corp." The documentation doesn't. It may in future have to
include the postgres license, which also covers postgres documentation
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/static/LEGALNOTICE.html

An important point I did make above was not to assign code to the
foundation, but to allow them unrestricted usage. Authors could still
use the bits they write for whatever other purpose they like regardless
(e.g. a magazine article or something)

Robert Munro