Subject: Re: copyright questions
To: Jason Thorpe <thorpej@nas.nasa.gov>
From: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
List: current-users
Date: 06/12/1997 19:23:39
>...this statement, quite frankly, is ridiculous.  For one, there is another
>copyright/license in the tree similar to this one, bearing the name of
>Jonathan Stone.  Secondly, so far, Chris is the only developer who has
>discussed this with Core.

As far as I was aware, Chris Demetriou had cleared his new copyright
with Core, and had okayed me using a copy of it, If Core, or the
NetBSD users, object strongly to use of Chris' new copyright notice,
I'll consider changing that copyright.


>       This product contains software developed by <insert name here>.
>...is different, for different values of <insert name here>.

Yup. That's an <insert name here> copyright.


>...then there are the files that have the CMU Mach copyright/license.
>They are also different.

There's also code in the NetBSD tree with Sprite copyrights.
(That's a UC copyright, but it's not the standard BSD copyright.)

There's code in the NetBSD tree with post-Mach CMU copyright/licenses
and Stanford copyright/licenses, where that code was written at C-MU
and Stanford, respectively.

>The NetBSD organization has been making an effort to get folks to
>assign copyright to The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.  (much like the FSF
>has contributors assign copyright to GNU software).  This helps to
>minimize the license differences that you encounter in the tree.
>But, this isn't always as speedy process.  And, if a contributor does
>not wish to assign copyright, they are not obligated to.

And sometimes, the contributor might not be able to assign copyright,
for example when they don't own it to assign;).  Some schools require
students and new faculty and staff to sign over intellectual property
rights to any work (including software) created with school resources.