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Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Remove Jan Wieck's name from copyrights, and put in standard
> boilerplate, with approval of author.

I really don't see why or how this is an improvement. But if no one
else cares about it, so be it ...

I wonder what would have happened if I had stuck my name in the
autovacuum.c, pg_shdepend.c or multixact.c files (wow, I did really come
up with all that stuff!) I know Tom hacked extensively on all of them,
so his name would also be there :-)

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

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Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@commandprompt.com> writes:
> I wonder what would have happened if I had stuck my name in the
> autovacuum.c, pg_shdepend.c or multixact.c files

We would have asked you for permission to change it to the standard
project copyright.

The plpgsql and pltcl files date from a time when we weren't paying
much attention to having a consistent copyright notice on all parts
of the source distribution, but now we are.

Seeing that now you're working for a company that depends on the ability
to redistribute the PG code commercially, I would think you'd be all for
making sure that the legalities are nicely lined up. Do you really want
to dig through the source tree at every release to see whether you can
redistribute all of it?

regards, tom lane

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> Seeing that now you're working for a company that depends on the ability
> to redistribute the PG code commercially, I would think you'd be all for
> making sure that the legalities are nicely lined up. Do you really want
> to dig through the source tree at every release to see whether you can
> redistribute all of it?
>
I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.

I can't read Alvaro's mind though .

It is very good to keep everything consistent.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

--
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc. 1.503.667.4564
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"Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
> I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
> doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.

Certainly, but if the file says "Copyright PostgreSQL Global Development
Group" then it's reasonable to assume that the intended license is the
one in the top COPYRIGHT file. If the file says copyright someone else
then this requires a bit of a leap of faith. If the file actually
contains its own license language (as Jan's files did till just now)
then that's unquestionably an independent license that you have to pay
attention to if you're redistributing.

> It is very good to keep everything consistent.

Yup, that's all we're after.

regards, tom lane

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On Thursday 09 March 2006 20:16, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
> > I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
> > doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.
>
> Certainly, but if the file says "Copyright PostgreSQL Global Development
> Group" then it's reasonable to assume that the intended license is the
> one in the top COPYRIGHT file. If the file says copyright someone else
> then this requires a bit of a leap of faith. If the file actually
> contains its own license language (as Jan's files did till just now)
> then that's unquestionably an independent license that you have to pay
> attention to if you're redistributing.
>
> > It is very good to keep everything consistent.
>
> Yup, that's all we're after.
>

It would be very good if it wasn't likely to cause more legal trouble than it
will help. Removing copyrights from actual people to be replaced with a
non-existent legal entity might be construed as eliminating any copyright
claim at all. Even if you could get the global development group recognized
legally as the copyright holder, you've only consolidated things for someone
to attempt to gain ownership of the code.

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

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Robert Treat wrote:
> On Thursday 09 March 2006 20:16, Tom Lane wrote:
> > "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
> > > I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
> > > doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.
> >
> > Certainly, but if the file says "Copyright PostgreSQL Global Development
> > Group" then it's reasonable to assume that the intended license is the
> > one in the top COPYRIGHT file. If the file says copyright someone else
> > then this requires a bit of a leap of faith. If the file actually
> > contains its own license language (as Jan's files did till just now)
> > then that's unquestionably an independent license that you have to pay
> > attention to if you're redistributing.
> >
> > > It is very good to keep everything consistent.
> >
> > Yup, that's all we're after.
> >
>
> It would be very good if it wasn't likely to cause more legal trouble than it
> will help. Removing copyrights from actual people to be replaced with a
> non-existent legal entity might be construed as eliminating any copyright
> claim at all. Even if you could get the global development group recognized
> legally as the copyright holder, you've only consolidated things for someone
> to attempt to gain ownership of the code.

With the BSD license, there really isn't any restriction to enforce, so
the copyright owner is pretty meaningless.

--
Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us
SRA OSS, Inc. http://www.sraoss.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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He does make a point ... if there is only one copyright holder, even if
right now its a non-entity, if someone like Oracle came along, *created* a
legal entity called 'The PostgreSQL Global Development Group', they could,
in theory, change the License wihtout needing to get approval from
current/past contributors ...

by retaining accreditation/copyright for those contributing the code, like
other projects do do, then changing the license becomes that much more
difficult ... no?

Example, wu-ftpd:

/************************************************** **************************

Copyright (c) 1999,2000 WU-FTPD Development Group.
All rights reserved.

Portions Copyright (c) 1980, 1985, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California.
Portions Copyright (c) 1993, 1994 Washington University in Saint Louis.
Portions Copyright (c) 1996, 1998 Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Portions Copyright (c) 1989 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Portions Copyright (c) 1998 Sendmail, Inc.
Portions Copyright (c) 1983, 1995, 1996, 1997 Eric P. Allman.
Portions Copyright (c) 1997 by Stan Barber.
Portions Copyright (c) 1997 by Kent Landfield.
Portions Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997
Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Use and distribution of this software and its source code are governed
by the terms and conditions of the WU-FTPD Software License ("LICENSE").

If you did not receive a copy of the license, it may be obtained online
at http://www.wu-ftpd.org/license.html.

$Id: extensions.c,v 1.48 2000/07/01 18:17:38 wuftpd Exp $

************************************************** **************************/


On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Robert Treat wrote:

> On Thursday 09 March 2006 20:16, Tom Lane wrote:
>> "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
>>> I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
>>> doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.
>>
>> Certainly, but if the file says "Copyright PostgreSQL Global Development
>> Group" then it's reasonable to assume that the intended license is the
>> one in the top COPYRIGHT file. If the file says copyright someone else
>> then this requires a bit of a leap of faith. If the file actually
>> contains its own license language (as Jan's files did till just now)
>> then that's unquestionably an independent license that you have to pay
>> attention to if you're redistributing.
>>
>>> It is very good to keep everything consistent.
>>
>> Yup, that's all we're after.
>>
>
> It would be very good if it wasn't likely to cause more legal trouble than it
> will help. Removing copyrights from actual people to be replaced with a
> non-existent legal entity might be construed as eliminating any copyright
> claim at all. Even if you could get the global development group recognized
> legally as the copyright holder, you've only consolidated things for someone
> to attempt to gain ownership of the code.
>
> --
> Robert Treat
> Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
>
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>

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> With the BSD license, there really isn't any restriction to enforce, so
> the copyright owner is pretty meaningless.

if nobody owns the code, then who has to be consulted to change the
license?

----
Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664

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At 9:18 PM -0500 3/9/06, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>Robert Treat wrote:
>> On Thursday 09 March 2006 20:16, Tom Lane wrote:
>> > "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> writes:
>> > > I am not sure, but I think that Alvaro's point is the copyright
>> > > doesn't matter in this instance. It is the license that does.
>> >
>> > Certainly, but if the file says "Copyright PostgreSQL Global Development
>> > Group" then it's reasonable to assume that the intended license is the
>> > one in the top COPYRIGHT file. If the file says copyright someone else
>> > then this requires a bit of a leap of faith. If the file actually
>> > contains its own license language (as Jan's files did till just now)
>> > then that's unquestionably an independent license that you have to pay
>> > attention to if you're redistributing.
>> >
>> > > It is very good to keep everything consistent.
>> >
>> > Yup, that's all we're after.
>> >
>>
>> It would be very good if it wasn't likely to cause more legal
>>trouble than it
>> will help. Removing copyrights from actual people to be replaced with a
>> non-existent legal entity might be construed as eliminating any copyright
>> claim at all. Even if you could get the global development group recognized
>> legally as the copyright holder, you've only consolidated things for someone
>> to attempt to gain ownership of the code.
>
>With the BSD license, there really isn't any restriction to enforce, so
>the copyright owner is pretty meaningless.


IANAL, but as I understand things, it's not possible to disclaim
ownership of something. That's why the BSD license is preferable to
"public domain". In most legal jurisdictions, liability (for
whatever) belongs to the copyright holder. By adding a license,
particularly one as liberal as the BSD license, you're setting rules
for how the code can be used, _and those rules can disclaim
liability_. Essentially, if you take responsibility for something,
you can legally insist that others use it responsibly (and if they
don't, they broke your rules so it's not your fault.)

Again, IANAL, but my $0.02 would be that copyright always stay with
some legal entity, either the individual authors, or some actual
holding company.

Distributed individual copyrights (like the WU-FTPD example) seem to
provide the most protection for preserving the license status quo,
since everyone on the list would have to agree to change it.

OTOH, an LLC or similar entity can shield individual authors from
legal liability. (Though the license itself might be sufficient.)

-pmb

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


I think everyone realizes at this point that the PGDG is not
an official legal entity, but do we at least have a modern
statement from Core as to what it is unofficially? In other
words, the PostgreSQL Global Development Group is
composed of ________

My two cents: keep the individual copyrights in, or have each
person sign a document transferring ownership to some
other entity. (Just want to point out that MySQL has chosen
the second option.

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200603092141
http://biglumber.com/x/web?pk=2529DF...9B906714964AC8
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