Dear all,
we are starting a project, which we intend to put under GNU license and distribute freely according to Free Software guidelines.
I will be the main coordinator of the project, but eg for startup there will be a person working for about 4 months on some initial framework.
Now I wonder whether I should make this person sign any kind of copyright assignment or so, in order to be able to deal with licensing issues etc. on my own, once we get to a stage where the software will be useful to more people than just ourselves.
Can someone give me some guidance about the legal issues involved here ?
a) will the person working temporarily on the project have copyright on her work ?
b) is there a standard form to fill in or so
c) are there other precautions to take
d) [very specific] are there other people working for the French research organisation CNRS who know which general steps to take to ensure all copyright issues with respect to developed software are resolved ?
Thanks very much in advance,
NB: as I am not subscribed to this list, please include my address in replies
Kind regards, Marc Baaden
First, I am not a lawyer.
You don't need that person to assign copyright to you. That person can retain the copyright of what he/she does and publish it with the GPL. From a legal point of view you might be in a better position if you get the copyright assigned to you.
I recomend you to read the following question of the GPL FAQ: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AssignCopyright
A Qua, 2003-04-30 às 08:22, Marc Baaden escreveu:
Dear all,
we are starting a project, which we intend to put under GNU license and distribute freely according to Free Software guidelines.
I will be the main coordinator of the project, but eg for startup there will be a person working for about 4 months on some initial framework.
Now I wonder whether I should make this person sign any kind of copyright assignment or so, in order to be able to deal with licensing issues etc. on my own, once we get to a stage where the software will be useful to more people than just ourselves.
Can someone give me some guidance about the legal issues involved here ?
a) will the person working temporarily on the project have copyright on her work ?
b) is there a standard form to fill in or so
c) are there other precautions to take
d) [very specific] are there other people working for the French research organisation CNRS who know which general steps to take to ensure all copyright issues with respect to developed software are resolved ?
Thanks very much in advance,
NB: as I am not subscribed to this list, please include my address in replies
Kind regards, Marc Baaden
Hello,
i am not a lawyer, but I've read a lot about this topic, so I try to answer.
Am Mittwoch, dem 30. Apr 2003 schrieb Marc Baaden:
we are starting a project, which we intend to put under GNU license and distribute freely according to Free Software guidelines.
I will be the main coordinator of the project, but eg for startup there will be a person working for about 4 months on some initial framework.
Now I wonder whether I should make this person sign any kind of copyright assignment or so, in order to be able to deal with licensing issues etc. on my own, once we get to a stage where the software will be useful to more people than just ourselves.
That's not necessary.
Can someone give me some guidance about the legal issues involved here ?
a) will the person working temporarily on the project have copyright on her work ?
Of course. According the Bern convention she has this automatically, IIRC.
b) is there a standard form to fill in or so
Accordung to german law the copyright (Urheberrecht) can't even be given up (unveräußerliches Recht).
But if she puts her code under the GPL right from the beginning, she gives you (and everybody else) the right to use it under these conditions. And according to the GPL these rights can't be rejected anymore.
The issues are, that she could insist in being mentioned in the copyright notice - and I hope, that's no problem for you. The worst thing she could do, is to use her code also in proprietary software. But she can only do this with her very own work. With a combined work this can only be done, if all the authors are content to do this (God beware).