Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
On Sun, 2005-06-05 at 21:01 +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: > > Can citizens of Germany and Austria assign their copyright interest > > to third parties? > > The exploitation rights can be transferred. These rights are the > important rights as far as software is concerned, but an author cannot > disclaim or transfer the non-commercial rights (being named as the > author, possiblity to prevent distortion and misrepresentation, and so > on). > Moral rights have a much lower status in the US and do not really apply here. Canada specifically excludes software from moral rights. That is too say, in Canada moral rights apply to works of art and literature but not to computer programs. What is the situation in Europe? Are you sure that moral rights apply to software there? -- D. Richard Hipp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
* D. Richard Hipp: > This would be a problem for any citizen of Germany or Austria > that wanted to contribute code to the SQLite project. I cannot > see that this would ever be a problem for an SQLite users. Yes, of course. > Can citizens of Germany and Austria assign their copyright interest > to third parties? The exploitation rights can be transferred. These rights are the important rights as far as software is concerned, but an author cannot disclaim or transfer the non-commercial rights (being named as the author, possiblity to prevent distortion and misrepresentation, and so on). > If so, then if you want to contribute code to SQLite, just assign > the copyright to me and I will then dedicate the code to the public > domain, which I can do since I am not a citizen of Austria or > Germany. The contributor can still exercise his or her right to be named as an author, for example, so the result wouldn't be truly public domain.
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Hi, Stefan Finzel wrote: As a german citizen I'll try you explain my understanding of my countries law. The basic concept should be similar within central Europe (Austria, France, Italy, Spain ... but not Great Britain) as most countries laws evolved from the Roman law . hmm... but in the case of copyright, Germany is a signatory of the Berne convention (right?), and so shouldnt the basic aspects of copyright remain the same? First one just handles the mental ownership of a piece of work. This can not be given to another party. In many cases this is worth nothing as is just bundles your name with your work. This does differ from copyright somewhat, but apparently it is also covered in the Berne convention. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/moral%20rights Second one handles the commercial and economical aspects. Of cause this is something total different. If you get paid for your work, you sometimes loose this rights to your customer or employer immediatly. If you still have this rights by your own you are able to give/license/sell them like every material thing. Would this not correspond to copyright? The right to sell is (usually) covered by copyright. As I unterstand the american way the customer or employer get the unrestricted usage rights under almost all circumstances. Additionally the author seems to have no right to be mentioned at all. I'm not from the U.S., so my understanding may be skewed, but it seems that it depends on the license and/or contract. Do not worry in casse an author tells you he gives you the right to use, to decide how to use AND(!!!) the right to modify it. The thing is, the right to use is covered by patent law (which doesnt yet and hopefully never applies to software in Europe, methinks), while the right to modify is covered by copyright law. Both are not moral rights, from what I see. Once again note, in Germany the right to modify code does not include removing the authors name. That's because the right of attribution is a moral right. Now most germans seems to accept the common GPL and BSD like copyrights. But I have problems understanding many restrictions/variatons of proprietary copyrights and just do not accept and use them. In cases german citizens accepted a foreign license model ot contribute software, it would be nearly impossible to involve a German court whether for license nor for warranty aspects. Yeah, there was a discussion on the differences in law in some European countries and the U.S. and similiar systems at the Open Source Initiative license discuss mailing list, but I wasnt paying attention :| Eugene Wee Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice/opinion.
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
thanks all! by the way, on the wiki page there was a link to an article which seems to confirm that ':memory:' is used as special filename to declare in memory database, indeed :)
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
As a german citizen I'll try you explain my understanding of my countries law. The basic concept should be similar within central Europe (Austria, France, Italy, Spain ... but not Great Britain) as most countries laws evolved from the Roman law . Sorry i am not a lawyer, just a programmer concerned with this question while living from his work but also giving parts of this work back to the community. We have two different parts. One is called 'Urheberrecht' (right of author) and the other "Entscheidungs-" and/or "Verwertungsrecht" (right to decide of usage and right to use) . First one just handles the mental ownership of a piece of work. This can not be given to another party. In many cases this is worth nothing as is just bundles your name with your work. Very often this right is incorrectly translated as Copyright even in European countries. Second one handles the commercial and economical aspects. Of cause this is something total different. If you get paid for your work, you sometimes loose this rights to your customer or employer immediatly. If you still have this rights by your own you are able to give/license/sell them like every material thing. As I unterstand the american way the customer or employer get the unrestricted usage rights under almost all circumstances. Additionally the author seems to have no right to be mentioned at all. Do not worry in casse an author tells you he gives you the right to use, to decide how to use AND(!!!) the right to modify it. You have all neccessary rights, except to remove the authors name (if it was there before!!!). Although this is just for the authors reputation/prestige even big companies have been accuessed to put back the name, to pay for unauthorized removal or stop usage immediatly. Once again note, in Germany the right to modify code does not include removing the authors name. Now most germans seems to accept the common GPL and BSD like copyrights. But I have problems understanding many restrictions/variatons of proprietary copyrights and just do not accept and use them. In cases german citizens accepted a foreign license model ot contribute software, it would be nearly impossible to involve a German court whether for license nor for warranty aspects. Stefan Finzel D. Richard Hipp wrote: On Fri, 2005-06-03 at 21:01 +0200, Andreas Rottmann wrote: There is no such thing as "disclaiming copyright" in Europe (or at least Germany and Austria). Rotty This would be a problem for any citizen of Germany or Austria that wanted to contribute code to the SQLite project. I cannot see that this would ever be a problem for an SQLite users. Can citizens of Germany and Austria assign their copyright interest to third parties? If so, then if you want to contribute code to SQLite, just assign the copyright to me and I will then dedicate the code to the public domain, which I can do since I am not a citizen of Austria or Germany. If citizens of Germany and Austria are not allowed to assign copyright, then you will not be allowed to contribute code to SQLite regardless of what license SQLite uses. Either way, the fact that SQLite has been dedicated to the public domain seems unimportant.
RE: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Much ado about nothing... -Original Message- From: D. Richard Hipp [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 6:08 PM To: sqlite-users@sqlite.org Subject: Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain? On Fri, 2005-06-03 at 21:01 +0200, Andreas Rottmann wrote: > There is > no such thing as "disclaiming copyright" in Europe (or at least > Germany and Austria). > > Rotty This would be a problem for any citizen of Germany or Austria that wanted to contribute code to the SQLite project. I cannot see that this would ever be a problem for an SQLite users. Can citizens of Germany and Austria assign their copyright interest to third parties? If so, then if you want to contribute code to SQLite, just assign the copyright to me and I will then dedicate the code to the public domain, which I can do since I am not a citizen of Austria or Germany. If citizens of Germany and Austria are not allowed to assign copyright, then you will not be allowed to contribute code to SQLite regardless of what license SQLite uses. Either way, the fact that SQLite has been dedicated to the public domain seems unimportant. -- D. Richard Hipp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
On Fri, 2005-06-03 at 21:01 +0200, Andreas Rottmann wrote: > There is > no such thing as "disclaiming copyright" in Europe (or at least > Germany and Austria). > > Rotty This would be a problem for any citizen of Germany or Austria that wanted to contribute code to the SQLite project. I cannot see that this would ever be a problem for an SQLite users. Can citizens of Germany and Austria assign their copyright interest to third parties? If so, then if you want to contribute code to SQLite, just assign the copyright to me and I will then dedicate the code to the public domain, which I can do since I am not a citizen of Austria or Germany. If citizens of Germany and Austria are not allowed to assign copyright, then you will not be allowed to contribute code to SQLite regardless of what license SQLite uses. Either way, the fact that SQLite has been dedicated to the public domain seems unimportant. -- D. Richard Hipp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Eric Bohlman wrote: This is a rather sticky point. It's unlikely that someone who unofficially "disclaimed copyright" would willingly change his mind afterwards, but that assumes ideal circumstances. In the Real World, people sometimes die, get divorced, or get sued by people they owe money to. It seems to me that if someone from a country that doesn't recognize voluntary relinquishment of copyright (and, AFAIK, that's most countries) contributes code to SQLite or something similar, his heirs, ex-spouse, or creditors could end up with a proprietary interest in part of the code. Not good. I think that maybe everyone is getting their nickers in a bunch over nothing here. It seems a little paranoid to get worried because somebody is giving something away for free. What's somebody going to sue for? Lost earnings because they didn't get their share of royalties for the code their former spouse/ancestor wrote? The code was written with the understanding that it would not generate any revenue. Copyright on the code has been renounced in the U.S. So somebody in Germany wants to sue Mr. Hipp because he can't renounce it there. That's really great, but German courts have very little ability to act against foreign citizens who are in another country. The same applies to other courts in other countries. You can get all the judgements against a foreign citizen you want in a Russian, Spanish or Chinese court. So long as the citizen stays on their native soil there's blessed little that can be done about collecting on those judgements. Before somebody chimes in about how it'll be your own company that gets sued for using the code, sit down and relax. Unless you have very deep pockets, you're more likely to be struck by lightning than to be a target of such a suit. There's no point in going after somebody who'll be bankrupted by fighting the case, since there'll be no money to collect. That's the sort of thing that happens to Daimler-Chrysler or IBM, because they can afford to fight the case. If your company is that size, you should be fretting the matter with your lawyers, not a mailing list. My advice? Stop fretting and get on with using this great little library. There's a lot more profit in that than there is in worrying about the unlikely event of a lawsuit that can't be collected on. Clay Dowling -- http://www.lazarusid.com/notes/ Lazarus Notes Articles and Commentary on Web Development
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Andreas Rottmann wrote: Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: * D. Richard Hipp: Public domain just seemed the easiest way to go. It is, until you want to incorporate a contribution from someone who can't give up his copyrught in a binding way. How do you handle contributions from Europe, especially Germany? Or hasn't that happened yet? This is a point that always stroke me about "public domain": There is no such thing as "disclaiming copyright" in Europe (or at least Germany and Austria). This is a rather sticky point. It's unlikely that someone who unofficially "disclaimed copyright" would willingly change his mind afterwards, but that assumes ideal circumstances. In the Real World, people sometimes die, get divorced, or get sued by people they owe money to. It seems to me that if someone from a country that doesn't recognize voluntary relinquishment of copyright (and, AFAIK, that's most countries) contributes code to SQLite or something similar, his heirs, ex-spouse, or creditors could end up with a proprietary interest in part of the code. Not good.
Re: [sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Well, since D. Richard Hipp would be the copyright holder if SQLite was licensed, that would be up to him, but he hasnt replied to the update yet. If the licensing policy changes, probably the MIT license or (new/revised) BSD license would be good choices, though it seems to me (as a non-lawyer) that Larry Rosen's AFL would provide better protection against patent problems - but then whether or not it really would affect GPLed code is debatable, and that's not fun if you're just interested in coding. Eugene Wee Darren Duncan wrote: Considering everything brought forth here, can anyone think of a reason not to have SQLite officially released from now on under a permissive free software license like the modified BSD license or the very similar X11 license? Aside from a bit of time to search-n-replace some text, what would we stand to lose from such an action? -- Darren Duncan
[sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Considering everything brought forth here, can anyone think of a reason not to have SQLite officially released from now on under a permissive free software license like the modified BSD license or the very similar X11 license? Aside from a bit of time to search-n-replace some text, what would we stand to lose from such an action? -- Darren Duncan
[sqlite] Re: philosophy behind public domain?
Florian Weimer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > * D. Richard Hipp: > >> Public domain just seemed the easiest way to go. > > It is, until you want to incorporate a contribution from someone who > can't give up his copyrught in a binding way. How do you handle > contributions from Europe, especially Germany? Or hasn't that > happened yet? > This is a point that always stroke me about "public domain": There is no such thing as "disclaiming copyright" in Europe (or at least Germany and Austria). Rotty -- Andreas Rottmann | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://yi.org/rotty | GnuPG Key: http://yi.org/rotty/gpg.asc Fingerprint | DFB4 4EB4 78A4 5EEE 6219 F228 F92F CFC5 01FD 5B62 v2sw7MYChw5pr5OFma7u7Lw2m5g/l7Di6e6t5BSb7en6g3/5HZa2Xs6MSr1/2p7 hackerkey.com Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth
