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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 01/14/2014 01:44 PM, Colin McNamara
wrote:<br>
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So, on one hand we have a perceived reticence to contribute to
copyrighted works (which I believe is a valid point)</blockquote>
<br>
It's a valid point only if one doesn't understand how copyright
works, and/or doesn't understand how Open Source works. And I
suppose that most of our corporate lawyers fall into the latter
category. But that means that it's our job to educate them.<br>
<br>
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<div>On the other hand, we have the reality that clearly stating
copyright on a file helps to protect the contributors in the
community (by clearly demonstrating who holds copyright)</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
This is not only not true (Git has a full audit trail of who owns
copyright on which bit, and Copyright is "protected" regardless of
whether you state it) but also seems to miss the point of
contributing to Open Source in the first place.<br>
<br>
First of all, protect against what, and against whom? If you don't
want your stuff reused, remixed, redistributed, and bent, spindled
and mutilated, then you shouldn't be contributing it to a project
that's under the Apache license.<br>
<br>
If you contribute a piece of prose to OpenStack, do you intend that
it can't be reused by other members of the OpenStack community? Are
you going to sue someone that uses excerpts from the documentation
in a conference presentation or book?<br>
<br>
If I write a paragraph and you correct my grammar, and someone else
rearranges the paragraph for clarity, who has copyright on that
collaborative work, and furthermore, who cares?<br>
<br>
And if any copyright statement discourages even one person from
contributing to the docs, hasn't it undone any good that it has
done?<br>
<br>
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<div>This may be a good opportunity for an article on <a
moz-do-not-send="true" href="http://OpenStack.org">OpenStack.org</a>
as well a session at the design summit.<br>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
Well, at the least, I'm writing a blog post, which will presumably
show up on planet.openstack at some point.<br>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Rich Bowen - <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rbowen@redhat.com">rbowen@redhat.com</a>
OpenStack Community Liaison
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://openstack.redhat.com/">http://openstack.redhat.com/</a></pre>
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