Re: [Ming-dev] Updated Copyright notice?

[Patrice D. <per...@fr...>]

On Wed, Jan 16, 2008 at 12:27:48PM +1300, Douglas Bagnall wrote:
> >From an outsider's perspective:
> 
> 
> Yes. Another consideration is that there are 200 or so copyright laws in
> the world, and they all work differently. In New Zealand, for example,
> copyright automatically goes to the author, and the existence or
> otherwise of copyright notices doesn't mean much.

That's not an issue, since there is the Bern convention. The example you
cite is not a real specificity since (unless I am wrong) it is in the
Bern convention (copyright is automatically set to the author). Overall
differences in law is not an issue here, since it is the work of the
court to translate the license in local terms in accordance to the Bern
convention.

> > I personally think that it would be nice if everybody agreed to transfer
> > to the FSF, and the FSF agreed to own the package.
> > 
> 
> It would be nice if they did, but in the not unlikely event that some
> developers don't want to (or can't be found), then you can't do it. All
> you will achieve is a boring flame war and the alienation of some
> contributors.

Not necessarily, it can't be an obligation. Contributors can say yes or
no there doesn't need to be flames.

> And if you do do it, what is actually gained? Nothing. The code is
> available as before.

The code is available, but you are misunderstanding the issue. The code
is not in the public domain, so we can assume that the authors intention
isn't only to have the code available, but also to have the license
honored. That may only happen if the authors can sue those who infringe
the license. And this can only happen if all the authors take the action
together. This can be very complicated in practice, so transfering
copyright to a single copyright holder may be convenient to be sure that
there is a possibility to defend the license in court.

> So I would let it rest. There *are* better uses of your time.

Although the current state of affair may be that it will be very hard to 
defend the license I agree that contacting all the authors of ming can
be a very time consuming task. Not to mention that some may not want to
assign their copyright (and its a perfectly valid choice).

--
Pat