[En-Nut-Discussion] RFC: Copyright of trivial code

[Harald Kipp]

Hi Ulrich,

On 3/21/2011 10:01 PM, Ulrich Prinz wrote:

>> Btw. many of these simple files had been created exclusively by me.
>> Ulrich had concerns, that I may change copyrights without getting the
>> original author involved. I have no intention to do so. On the other
>> hand, as the original author I'm free to re-release the same files at
>> any time under any license I wish.

...

> Let's say you are mentioned as the original author of a file and I
> modified 90% of it at a time where the license matches my needs. Now you
> claim your original creator rights and modify the license that renders
> the file unusable for me...

This happens when Germans discuss legal issues in a foreign language. 
;-) Obviously my wording was wrong and introduced some confusion.

I meant original in the sense of authentic or genuine, _not_ in the 
sense of first or initial.

If you create a derived work by adding remarkable parts to my initial 
work, the derived work deserves copyright as well. In this case the work 
is published under yours and my copyright.

I'm still able to release the initial version under any other license at 
my will, but both of us must agree to release the derived work under a 
different license.


> The FSF requests to keep your GPL code available for three years after
> _last_ product using that code left your factory. So lets say, the
> product was in production for three years. Now somewhere in that time of
> six years somebody changed the license in a file to GPL and now comes to
> the idea to spend him and the FSF some money.

Precisely: You cannot _change_ BSD licensed code to any other license. 
The authors can release the code under a different license, but that 
will not remove the BSD license from code, that had been published under 
BSDL.

Let's assume, that the majority of the authors of Nut/OS decide to 
continue their work under GPL. In that case they are able to replace all 
copyright notices of all files of which they hold the _exclusive_ copyright.

Let's further assume, that one file contains two important lines of 
genuine work done by you and that you refuse to release this under GPL. 
Btw. this is independent from what's stated in the copyright text. The 
CVS/SVN commit may sufficiently prove, that it's your work. In this case 
the file cannot be moved to GPL, because that would violate the BSDL of 
your code. The whole file must remain BSD licensed code, unless your 
contribution is removed.

Last not least, all authors and users, who refuse to follow this move, 
may create a fork right before that change and continue development 
under BSDL.

As you can see, you are quite safe. At least in that license changes 
will not provide unforeseen surprises.

Regards,

Harald