Re: Thoughts about gnuplot license and copyrights

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Monday 23 January 2006 07:10 am, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
> Ethan A Merritt wrote:
> > I conclude that you would need on the order of 25 signatures to
> > fully satisfy the FSF, if that is your goal. But that specific
> > criterion would only be triggered if you were attempting to
> > transfer copyright to the FSF, which is rather extreme.
>
> You would need equally many signatures regardless of what kind of
> legal body you assign the copyright to.

Maybe; I'm not sure. But I think the issue of copyright is sidetracking
the main point under discussion.

It is not necessary to transfer copyright in order to change a license.
End users have access to the code, with certain restrictions, because
of the license.  The current holder of the copyright is not all that
relevant if the license grants permanent rights to others.  If ther
code were relicensed following the model of  GPL or BSD or Pine,
development could continue even if the original copyright holders
were to drop out of sight.

What is true, however, is that in order to change the license we
would have to get the explicit approval of Thomas, and it would
certainly be safest to get explicit approval from as many other
names on the list as possible.

I point out again that individual contributors can make their
contributions available under multiple licenses.  Timoth=E9e, for
example, can mark his wxWidgets code as being licensed under
the GPL if he wishes. In this case he must *also*  license it under
gnuplot's current license (or possibly LGPL) in order for gnuplot
to use it.  But dual-licensing would allow 3rd parties to re-use
the driver code in other projects regardless of the course of
gnuplot development.

> * Get ready to face the music.  Sign over the copyrights to some
> legal body.  Either to an existing institution, or an individual or
> to a foundation to be created for the purpose.

You have left out the most expedient option, IMHO:

3)  Leave the copyright as is, but change the license.

=2D-=20
Ethan A Merritt
Biomolecular Structure Center
University of Washington, Seattle WA