Re: License and copyright

Hello Everyone, I wasn't exactly an ace on IP law but... I passed that course during law school ;) I think that the majority of PEAR developers just copy and paste the license (as I do) but unfortunately copyright issue is a bit more delicate. You can't really assign the copyright to the group because "Copyright arises automatically once an original effort has been started and some aspect of it has been fixed in a tangible medium. One need not even have notice on published copies. " (more at http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/COPYSOF.htm) so I don't think that you can transfer it by default assigning it to the Group. The copyright should be retained by the author but, by keeping an acceptable license, the extension wouldn't enter into conflict with PHP. So when you use a license you normally change the copyright holder e.g. http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php (acceptable under PEAR standards, BSD template requires you to change the copyright holder). In fact, since we are at it, will be another BSD style license e.g. MIT http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php acceptable for the Pear Group ? Unless otherwise noted I would assume that it does, as the License Announcement accepts BSD style licenses. One important point: by retaining copyright you have the possibility to dual license the same code if necessary.

- PHP group is part of the apache group. - If anyone abuses the copyright (although I'm not sure how, since it's a pretty liberal licence), then you can ask for the assitance of the apache group in sorting it out..

Not sure, we are in an case talking only about legal fiction because going to court is an expensive endeavor and is normally reserved to big players. Cheers David Costa On Sep 27, 2004, at 4:35 PM, Alan Knowles wrote:

As far as I remember: you dont have to assign you copyright to the PHP group, but the benefits are: - PHP group is part of the apache group. - If anyone abuses the copyright (although I'm not sure how, since it's a pretty liberal licence), then you can ask for the assitance of the apache group in sorting it out.. I'm sure someone can correct me if I got that wrong.. Regards Alan Olivier Guilyardi wrote:

Hi, Packages licensed under the PHP license all begin by : | PHP Version 4 +------------------------------------------ | Copyright (c) 1997-2004 The PHP Group +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | This source file is subject to version 3.0 of the PHP license, Then, below : | Authors : ... Shouldn't this be : | Package Foo - Parse Bar files +-------------------------------------------------- | Copyright (c) 2004 <Author Name> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | This source file is subject to version 3.0 of the PHP license, ? Does applying the PHP license imply giving the copyright to 'The PHP Group' ? Losing intellectual ownership ? -- og

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