Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Daniel J S. <dan...@ie...>]

Dave Denholm wrote:

> Maybe one way out is to persuade Thomas Williams to grant permission
> to a trusted nominee to release as and when required. Thomas would
> retain the option to revoke that permission at a time of his choosing,
> but it does mean that if he does vanish, there is one other person can
> release..

I'd prefer it to be more than that.  I recall past discussion was that copyright has to be assigned to a *person*.  If gnuplot is meant to be a community development sort of thing, which I'm assuming it soon turned into after seeing all the names in files and the fact that no one ever objected to it or protected such copyright, then it should be maintained that way.  (I still fail to see how all of the additions in CVS since T.W. would fall copyright under someone not-so-active in its development.)

What would be nice is a gnuplot developers group who oversee this sort of thing.  Can copyright be transfered?  Ask T.W. if he is willing to do so, then have three people in the developers group attain copyright, with a very specific understanding (maybe backed up with a legal notice) that if ever one of the three is unable to respond to copyright matters within a year, the copyright will be transfered to someone else in the group.  And the language might be that copyright holders act in the spirit of community development.  I don't think there is anything about "open" software copyrights dealing with the copyright holders.

There would definitely be some paperwork, signatures and legal fees involved, but perhaps not too bad.  [Keep in mind that legal language itself is often inexact and left to judges to have "reasonable" interpretation.  That word "reasonable" shows up a lot in law.]  What good is a copyright if there is no one there to uphold it if ever some circumstance arises?

And by uphold I mean the developer group, after dicussion and recognizing someone or some company out there is attempting to usurp the software as their own, the copyright holders might have some authority to say, via lawyer, "hey, hold on".

Part of the problem is that legal systems and governments not being up to speed software technology in this area.  The day will probably come though when some kind of related court action appears (not necessarily gnuplot, but with so many such projects out there...).

Dan