RE: Copyright [cgf, please comment]

["Harold Hunt" <huntharo at msu dot edu>]

> > If there are concerns regarding the license on my works, then
> > refer to these
> > GNU FDL sections:
> > 2 - Verbatim copying
> > 3 - Copying in quantity
> > 4 - Modifications
>
> Harold that is license from GNU.  I request do you agree to
> change the line
> Copyright (c) 2000 Harold Hunt to Authroship 2000 Harold Hunt?
> It should be
> no issue.
> You will be author of your documents, and we will have an easy solution of
> avoiding
> putting Copyright noticed on Red hat server which does not belong
> to RedHat.
> That is all
> I asked.  It should not be a big issue for an opensource project.
> Opensource project
> will help you for your resume when you go to job market, you can
> still show
> you are the author
> and that is all the employer cares ;-)

I swear, I'm talking a brick wall.

I don't think a single one of my emails about copyrights has been read.

I think I'll write a poem, just because I can... nah, no one is reading
anyway...

Hey, I bet I could write all sorts of neat stuff in here as a joke, since,
you know, nobody seems to be reading what I'm writing.  Won't it be funny to
come back later and see the replies that missed the funny stuff I wrote?
For instance, I could write, "all people that reply to this email wear
women's underwear", then I can laugh at everyone that replies to this email
:)

> You are allowed to modify, etc any GPL software too, but you do not own
> the copyright?  That is a license issue.  You own the authorship of only
> modified portion if you choose to stick a note on the modified portion of
> the code and/or document.

You always own the copyright on works that you produce, unless you
specifically and deliberately fill out a copyright transer form and sign it.
An example copyright transfer form would be the one that RedHat uses for
contributions to Cygwin:
http://cygwin.com/assign.txt

You are asking me to assign copyright without a copyright transfer form, and
I'm telling you that I won't do that because doing so pretty much destroys
anyones claim to a copyright on a particular work.  When assigning
copyrights you have to have a paper trail in order to make a copyright
transfer legally binding.

Harold