Re: Overview of copyright issues

[Hans Aberg]

On 10 Sep 2009, at 11:20, Anthony W. Youngman wrote:

> > > You can't simply go around and change licenses, unless you are the  
> > > copyright
> > > holder!
> >
> > But you are the copyright owner of the LilyPond code.
>
> Copyright belongs to the person who wrote the code (sometimes).

Unless explicitly signed over to somebody else.

> There is no ONE owner of lilypond - it is spread amongst many.
>
> Indeed I personally MIGHT own some copyright in lilypond! There's a  
> good argument I do, it's a grey area!

In GNU projects, the normal thing is that contributors sign a paper  
which is sent in to GNU that they donate the code to GNU.

> > > That's the paperwork that is needed: Every contributor, who has  
> > > until
> > > now contributes as GPL v2only, needs to agree to change his/her  
> > > contributions
> > > to GPL v2+. Unless you track down every substantial contributor  
> > > (git helps in
> > > that regard), LilyPond can't switch to GPL v2+.
> >
> > Why? Is there a GNU requirement? - My cursory reading of v3 did not  
> > find anything like that. Where does this idea come from?
>
> It's nothing to do with GNU. It's the law.

Sorry. I thought you meant code from other projects.

But the situation is still the same: even if you haven't individually  
donated the code (i.e. signed over the copyright) to the collective  
GNU project called LilyPond, you can change the conditions of each  
part as the individual copyright owners give permission. When you  
distribute it, you need to make sure that the conditions of each part  
is fulfilled.

So say somebody (to make an explicit example) wants to make tivoized  
distribution of LilyPond. They then need to replace the v3 parts with  
something else, but can keep the v2 parts.

  Hans