[ Date Index ][
Thread Index ]
[ <= Previous by date /
thread ]
[ Next by date /
thread => ]
On Wednesday 08 September 2004 20:15, Tom Brough wrote:
I am extra annoyed as i contributed some very useful parts to this software
That will learn me not to specificly put GPL headers on the top of my contributed source code!
IANAL and this is not legal advice and if it is don't follow it, BUT, as I understand it when you write code it is copyright regardless of anything you do or don't add to the source. You can assign the copyright to someone else, or explicitly place it in the public domain - without restrictions on use including someone declaring it to be their own - by making a specific action of doing so, and you can of course licence it under any conditions you like, one of which would be the GPL. If you have not assigned the copyright, then nobody has _any_ right to use your contributions or anything that includes them. Reasonably enough, if you sent them in then the recipient would expect to be able to use them in the conditions then extant, but that does not I think make it an unlimited licence. You could ask for recompense for your code, or insist it is removed, whether you then distribute it yourself under a suitable licence is up to you. If there are many people in a similar position, the cost to the company of closing the code might be greater than that of opening it properly under an OSS licence. Probably they won't regard it as such though. -- Adrian Midgley Open Source software is better GP, Exeter http://www.defoam.net/ -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.