Copyright [cgf, please comment]

Harold Hunt huntharo@msu.edu
Thu May 31 12:32:00 GMT 2001


Suhaib,

> When I started this project (Cygwin/Xfree86) two years ago, I assigned my
> Copyright to Cygwin Solutions, which is now Red Hat.

I'm pretty sure the copyright assignment form that Cygwin requests only
applies to contributions to the Cygwin project.

In any case, your having filled out the form only has an effect on what you
write, not what anyone else writes :)

> The Source code changes to Xfree86 source tree were
> transferred to Xfree86 Inc. under their license agreement.

Contributions to the XFree86 tree generally have the copyright owned by the
author of the file; you'd have to fill out some very strange legal forms to
assign XFree86 contributions to RedHat, and there isn't really any reason to
do so.

Copyright of the changes I have made generally belong to XFree86, though I
really should have filled out some paperwork indicating this transfer of
copyright on the new files that I made.

> However, other
> material posted or contributed to this project, such as Url, HTML pages,
> User Guides and FAQ etc etc, authors retain Authorship, not the Copyright.

That all depends on what the author chose to do with the copyright when they
wrote the works in question.  Posting a work on a RedHat owned web server
does not constitute a transfer of copyright, as copyright transfer is a
legal mechanism that requires formal paperwork.

For example, the Cygwin/XFree86 User's Guide and the Cygwin/XFree86 FAQ
(draft) both are copyrighted by Harold L Hunt II (me :).  Furthermore, the
GNU FDL that is contained in both documents is copyrighted by the Free
Software Foundation; I really doubt that RMS would agree that posting the
FSF's FDL license on a web server constitues a transfer of copyright :)

I chose to retain the copyright on my writings primarily because doing
otherwise would require:
1) Finding an organization that wishes to vigorously defend the copyright of
the works I have produced
2) I can't just arbitrarily decide that the copyright on my work belongs to
someone else, I have to sign legal paperwork in order for the copyright
transfer to hold up in court; failing to do so would likely result in the
works becoming public domain, which was not my original intention.

I should point out that public domain is undesireable because it lacks the
"copyleft" of the FDL which allows any future author to modify my original
works.  For example, Company Foo could modify a public domain document, Baz,
and they could prevent others from publishing or distributing those
modifications.  Whereas the FDL forces any modifications of the original
work to be licensed under the FDL, ad infinitum.

I don't fully understand why this has been brought up at all?  If it has
anything to due with questions of what would happen should the author of
certain works become unavailable, then the answer is simple.  The FDL and X
licenses allow everyone to do almost anything they wish with the works that
I have produced.  For example, the Cygwin/XFree86 User's Guide can be
modified, printed, distributed on purple paper with white polka dots, or
disregarded entirely; all of these uses and more are permitted by the FDL,
regardless of what I think :)  Source code that I have produced under the X
license allows the previously mentioned freedoms plus the ability to modify
what I have done without releasing your modifications in source code form.

Ownership of the copyright on works related to Cygwin/XFree86 only
determines whom is obligated to prosecute offending parties if the terms of
the licenses covering the works are violated.

Harold



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