[ On , March 8, 1999 at 20:23:32 (-0500), Perry E. Metzger wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: NetBSD Copyright (Was: Re: Last chance: Copyrights is OK ?)
>
> The copyright morass is pretty bad. Frankly, I prefer it if people
> just stick to using the standard BSD copyright, possibly without the
> advertising clause. It is far simpler. If people want to write longer
> and bigger copyrights, it makes life harder for everyone. I'd prefer
> it if Greg or whomever just stuck to that license.

Let's back up for a moment.

I think there are two primary problems -- one alluded to above, and
another which was seemingly stressed earlier in the thread that started
this.

The first problem, alluded to above, is that the "standard" BSD
copyright license was presumably written before the USA signed the Berne
Convention, and is indeed somewhat specific to US law (presumably it was
drafted by lawyers working for UCB who were familiar with the US
copyright law of the time).  Unfortunately, or fortunately, whichever
way you look at it, I'm not a US citizen, and I didn't write any code
while residing in the USA or while working for a US-based company.  So
far as I understand this means (even in the face of international
conventions) that my code is covered by the Canadian Copyright Act.  My
copyright license should be governed by the Canadian law, and my rights
are protected by the law of my country, in accordance with International
conventions.  In Canada, and presumably in the US since it became a
signatory to the Berne Convention, it is the copyright license terms
which are most important, not the declaration of copyright.  So if I
might want to slightly modify the terms of even the standard BSD
copyright license I must reproduce it entirely -- I can't just reference
it and offer my specific ammendments.

The other major issue, at least in my mind, is whether or not TNF will
request, require, encourage, cajole, or coerce programmers into signing
away their rights to TNF.  For the record I doubt if I will ever assign
copyright of any of my complete works to any other entity except perhaps
a corporation in which I hold a significant or controlling share.  If I
don't really care about something I will put it into the public domain.
Only if what I've contributed is merely a set of simple changes to an
existing work will I relenquish my rights (as I've done in the past for
many things, including work on emacs and smail).  [Of course there's
always the possibilty of monetary or other material compensation
convincing me otherwise, though I doubt this will apply for any software
I might offer originally as freeware.]

The minor issue mixed up in all of this is whether or not a given
programmer wishes to protect or require the use of their name in
promotional materials.  I happen to want to protect and prevent the use
of my name in promotional materials as I don't want it used without my
explicit permission (despite the fact that I do want my complete
copyright license to accompany even binary distributions which contain
my works).

The desire for ammendments also raises the issue of protecting the
ammended copyright notice.  I've seen far to many people make even
slight, but content related, changes to copyright notices which are not
their own, especially on works which are included in a larger collective
work (such as subroutines, drivers, documentation, etc., included in a
larger complete software product).  It's also very easy in the software
world to create a derrivative work, perhaps wihtout even consiously
realizing it.

> We do accept other licenses, but usually only when a piece of software
> is very important and otherwise hard to get. More licenses means more
> complexity for users and maintainers. Its a big pain.

I can't and don't disagree with that.  Unfortunately this is the price
we must pay for the way we, as a society, have chosen to "mark" our
territory when it comes to intellectual property.  I would prefer that
all software be required by law to be free.  However since that's a
fairly radical and increasingly unlikely scenario I'm going to use the
instruments of the law to make sure my software creations have the
degree of freedom that I feel is necessary while at the same time
retaining full ownership of those works in hopes that I can protect
those freedoms using the legal system.

If TNF wishes to be welcoming and respective of the works of others then
I would suggest that they find some way to accomodate the wishes of
their contributors w.r.t. the copyright protection of their contributions.

Until such time that someone can assure me that I can legally reference
and ammend a generic copyright license then I think it's necessary that
each unique copyright license be given in full, and if that means
publishing an 800 KB file full of notices then so be it.

Yes, there do seem to be advantages to having a single copyright license
such as the GPL that's both a carefully worded legal document *and* a
philosophical statement that all developers can agree upon and will use
uniformly.  ;-)  Unfortunately I don't see that the standard BSD
copyright has made a strong enough philosophical statement to encourage
developers to use it uniformly and without modification.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

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