Allison Randal wrote: > > So, with Perl 5, Larry is the compilation owner. The problem with that > is it makes Larry personally liable for any action brought against > Perl (not that that would ever happen, we hope), and a successful suit > could take his house, his car, his savings, etc. (not that that would > ever happen, we hope). With Perl 6/Parrot we decided putting the > burden of liability on the foundation is a better way to do it. That > way the worst that can happen in a legal action is that someone can > take the (limited) resources of TPF (not that that will ever happen, > we hope).
It's likely just ignorance on my part, but the mention of a compilation copyright sounds like a new thing. Licensing etc. may be considered off-topic for this list. If so, please direct me to the appropriate forum. Hopefully not /dev/null... Where is Larry attributed as the compilation owner of Perl 5? Does a compilation copyright exist even if it isn't asserted or registered? Wouldn't the Pumpking of each Perl distribution be its compilation copyright owner? Can you name any other open source projects that make use of compilation copyrights? Why does TPF or any open source project need a "compilation copyright"? I.e. why aren't the copyrights on the contributed works enough? How specifically would the TPF and/or compilation copyrights limit the liability of individual source code contributors? How well are compilation copyrights respected internationally? What do compilation copyrights really get us? I.e. What are the pro's and con's of compilation copyrights for all parties involved: contributors, TPF, users, derivative works, re-compilation, and redistribution. Where parties include the non-commerical vs commerical and open source vs propietary angles. I'm not an IP nazi. I come from the keep it as simple as practical school. Berkeley and MIT have pretty good lawyers. If the BSDs can be distributed with significantly simpler copyrights and licenses... why do we need to make things more complicated? NIH syndrome? That said, from a quick googling, it looks like copyright licensing issues revolving around combined, joint, collective, compilation, and derivative works _are_ complicated. Indeed there's a strong difference of opinion on whether the GPL applies to combined works, and whether or not that constitutes misuse of copyright. Creative Commons share-alike licenses don't try to extend to combined works. Legal + complex = yech... Do we really need to go there? >From my cursory reading on collective copyrights, they afford protection against copyright infringement only on those creative aspects of how the compilation was assembled and the contributed works where all rights were transferred. I don't see any mention anywhere of how compilation copyrights can protect contributions for which the individual contributors copyrights have been reserved, or those contributors from liability claims. In trying to come up to speed, I've found the following useful: http://linuxmafia.com/kb/Licensing_and_Law http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sup_01_17.html http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/259_F3d_065.htm http://www.law.cornell.edu/copyright/cases/283_F3d_502.htm -- Garrett Goebel IS Development Specialist ScriptPro Direct: 913.403.5261 5828 Reeds Road Main: 913.384.1008 Mission, KS 66202 Fax: 913.384.2180 www.scriptpro.com [EMAIL PROTECTED]