On 23 Jun 2005 09:43:08 -0500, kfogel@collab.net <kfogel@collab.net> wrote:
> Daniel Berlin <dberlin@dberlin.org> writes:
> > You've asked two different questions.
> > The answer to the first is no, the second is yes.
> > :)
> > If you ask "has he assigned copyright to CollabNet", the answer is no.
> > Assignment of copyright is a "term of art", and has very specific meaning.
> >
> > If you ask "would this make any difference in a court of law given
> > what he has done", the answer is probably also no, because he'd
> > probably be estopped from asserting copyright infringement claims.
> >
> > However, not having assigned the code does mean he doesn't have to
> > worry about how CollabNet is going to license it, because he can still
> > do what he wants.
>
> Thanks, perfectly clear.
Likewise, and fine with me. What caught my attention the first time
out was that the stock statement in the source files says "Copyright
(c) 2000-2004 CollabNet.", which it wouldn't actually be without my
assigning copyright. (I'd guess one could argue that by placing that
notice in text I submitted I was assigning copyright, but that'd be
hard to establish formally.) I'm happy to use the boilerplate
(assuming, of course, that the patch is worth adding :-)) as current
convention, or to simply state that a perpetual license is granted to
CollabNet, or any user, to use the code with Subversion.
Even apart copyright assignment, I agree (as a non-attorney) with Mr.
Berlin that it'd be hard for someone who submitted a patch to
Subversion through the current review process to argue that there was
no intent for it to be incorporated into Subversion under its current
license for distribution, which is what I think it'd take to assert
copyright infringement based on inclusion in Subversion. There might
be more of an argument over its inclusion in dervative works (since
the Subversion COPYING license isn't really clear about revocation and
severability), and moreso about inclusion in broadly unrelated works
by cutting-and-pasting from Subversion's sources, but I'd guess these
aren't things about which CollabNet's too worried.
--
Regards,
Charles Bailey
Lists: bailey _dot_ charles _at_ gmail _dot_ com
Other: bailey _at_ newman _dot_ upenn _dot_ edu
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Received on Thu Jun 23 18:46:55 2005