Re: Potential LSR licensing violations

[Jean Abou Samra]

> Le 20/10/2022 08:50 CEST, Luca Fascione <l.fascione@gmail.com> a écrit :
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 7:40 AM Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> wrote:
> > Le 20/10/2022 à 07:22, Werner LEMBERG a écrit :
> > 
> > It would be a problem if we assigned copyright to the FSF.
> > As you mentioned below, we don't do this.
> > 
> > > [*] Here comes the benefit of transferring the copyright to the FSF,
> > > which can handle such things without having to ask the original
> > > author AFAIK. LilyPond, however, inspite of being a GNU project,
> > > doesn't ask contributors for such a copyright transfer.
> 
> I would think it to be a more sustainable way forward to assign the copyright
> of contributions to the Lilypond project itself (or a similar entity, in 
> charge of the project
> but not linked to the identity of one or more specific individuals).
> 
> Some folks use a statement like "Copyright 2012, 2016-2019 The contributors 
> of the Lilypond Project", for example.
> 
> This has two kinds of advantages: one is that in instances like this where it 
> becomes sensible to
> re-license some content, this can be done in a way that is transparent and 
> doesn't necessitate
> tracking down specific individuals. (At the moment this list is where these 
> discussion would happen,
> so the archives will provide a mean to track down when and how a given 
> decision was made).
> 
> The other advantage is that it provides better insulation for the individual 
> contributing persons
> against non-benevolent external parties that might show up to assert rights 
> they might think
> they have (rightfully or not). Classic example would be patent rights 
> infringement.
> Although Lilypond is not a commercial project, nor it is a particularly big 
> one (so it's
> unlikely to attract attention from unsavory characters), I do feel it would 
> be a good ethical
> standard to apply on the part of the project managers and owners to try and 
> insulate the contributors
> from potential unpleasantness.
> I repeat my disclaimer: Although I have been part of extensive discussions on 
> this topic,
> I am not a lawyer, and my words do not constitute legal advice.



AFAIK, in order to assert copyright on something, you
first have to exist legally. If you are not a physical
person, you need to exist as an organization. We don't
have a LilyPond foundation (yet).

The scheme "Copyright by the authors of project X" is used
in many FLOSS projects, but it does not mean that kind of
assignment, it is merely a shortcut for listing the contributors
individually. Copyright remains in the hands of the individual
contributors, it is not transferred to some sort of organization.

Anyway, this discussion is academical. It would have practical
relevance if we were creating the project today.
`git shortlog -s | wc -l` tells that there have been
236 contributors to the project. We cannot ask each of
them to assign copyright to the LilyPond foundation even
if we were to create it.

Cheers,
Jean