Re: Gnuplot concerns

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

Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:
> Daniel J Sebald wrote:
> 
>> I wonder why the copyright of 2004 should be attributed to Williams 
>> and Kelly if they were not contributors or didn't oversee development?
> 
> 
> Formally, they did.  Well, one of them at least.  Every release in the 
> last 10 years has been personally "blessed" by Mr. Williams himself.

I suppose, in a remote sense.

>> I don't know a whole lot of copyright law in the case of derived 
>> works, but wouldn't it make more sense 
> 
> 
> In my experience, (American) law and "making sense" are mutually 
> exclusive concepts ;-(

You're making a mockery of our legal system?!...  That's for us to do.

> 
>  > to be something like
> 
>>
>> Copyright 1986 - 1993, 1998  Thomas Williams, Colin Kelly
>> Copyright 2004  Gnuplot Developer Group
> 
> 
> That would be quite impossible, because there is no legal entity called 
> the "Gnuplot Developer Group" to which that 2004 copyright could 
> possibly long. Moreover, the original authors could never have signed 
> over copyright to this non-existing entity.

I suppose that is a big hole in the argument.  It would have to be a person or an actual corporation, which probably gets better protection than personal copyrights; you know how that goes.

Dan