Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 21:48:20 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: licia@o-o.org (Licia) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, mike@smith.net.au, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Donating Copyrights? Message-ID: <199902262148.OAA11520@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9902260925500.22667-100000@o-o.org> from "Licia" at Feb 26, 99 09:32:08 am
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> > It's also a bit hard to make someone hold you harmless, as the author > > of the work, from damages resulting from its use, unless it's a > > condition of the license. > > > > Also, copyrights have to be held by humans, and assigned to legal > > entities, just like patents. The length of a copyright is 50 years > > following the death of the author. > > I suppose I need to clarify more. (making a note to myself to be more complete > in the future.) > > I was specifically asking if there is a formal or traditional procedure to be > followed by individuals wishing to donate the copyright of an original work to > the FreeBSD Project. > > I'm not asking about copyright law, but about procedures regarding donating > them specifically to the FreeBSD project. > > As an example, if I develop an application, kernel module, bit of > documentation, advocacy flyer, etc and want to donate the copyright to that > material to the FreeBSD Project, does FreeBSD have an established process for > handling this? See /sys/kern/kern_lockf.c. The software is contributed, and the Regents claim copyright on a derived work, which is what expresses protction for the original author. Then the holds harmless specifies "REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS", rather than an author. The advertising clause does likewise: * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software * must display the following acknowledgement: * This product includes software developed by the University of * California, Berkeley and its contributors. The lockf code in this example is from Scooter Morris at Genentech Inc. (yes, the genetic engineering company that invented Humalin). In this case, the UCB is the "deep pockets", and the original developer could claim bug introduction in the derivation process, to escape from any lawsuit. I don't know if Jordan would want to do this for FreeBSD Inc., since there would be some risk involved. It would help to have a non-profit entity, to make any potential plaintiff look like a bully to a jury. FWIW, a Subchapter S non-profit would help for tax deductability of donations. It might be time to consider a "FreeBSD Foundation, Inc.", or a "FreeBSD Institute, Inc.". Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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