Licensing for NEW documents

Hi :slight_smile:
Ok, the human-readable explanation claims that individuals within an external organisation would have to each sign their own individual CLA's with ASF.  However the legalese in the contract doesn't seem to insist on that at all
http://www.apache.org/licenses/cla-corporate.txt

1. Definitions.

      "You" (or "Your") shall mean the copyright owner or legal entity
      authorized by the copyright owner that is making this Agreement
      with the Foundation. For legal entities, the entity making a
      Contribution and all other entities that control, are controlled by,
      or are under common control with that entity are considered to be a
      single Contributor.

In our case the copyright holder is TDF. Well at the moment not TDF but the German community (or is it French?) that is the legally registered organisation that is looking after TDF assets until TDF is fully registered.

I don't have a specialism in copyright or contracts or anything and don't have any qualifications in law for even a single country so i am aware there are a lot of implications and things that i am completely unaware of. Also i know Alex does have some expertise in exactly the right area although he is not officially employed as an expert and is only giving us the benefit of his opinion for us to weigh-up.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Hi Tom,

In our case the copyright holder is TDF. Well at the moment not TDF but the German community (or is it French?) that is the legally registered organisation that is looking after TDF assets until TDF is fully registered.

Unfortunately, or fortunately (depending on which half of the glass you
see as full ;-)), the copyright holder is each individual author, and
not TDF (that is precisely why there is no copyright assignment in any
part of the LibreOffice project.

If a contributor wishes to have his/her contribution accepted within the
LibreOffice project then they have to do so under the LGLP3+/MPL+ for
code, or CC-BY-SA for anything else, unless there are other specific
reasons for this not being the case (which will always raise the
question as to whether it is really accepted or not), as for example,
with some older code that has been revamped but must be kept currently
under LGPL2.

So TDF (or even the German foundation currently running things while it
is being set up) is not the owner of the documentation produced.

The Documentation Project is not a legal entity in the sense of the word
"organisation" referred to in the AL2 license - it has no legal remit of
representation for copyright assignments.

I don't have a specialism in copyright or contracts or anything and don't have any qualifications in law for even a single country so i am aware there are a lot of implications and things that i am completely unaware of. Also i know Alex does have some expertise in exactly the right area although he is not officially employed as an expert and is only giving us the benefit of his opinion for us to weigh-up.

Indeed, I'm not (to my knowledge) employed by any entity involved in
this project (thankfully), which allows me to be have an unfettered
opinion. I have been known as an "électron libre" in the past, and for
the most part, have managed to stay that way :wink:

I have already stated on the Apache OOo list that I would not allow for
the licences of any of my previous documentation contributions to be
changed (since at one stage, some people were touting an "automatic, by
default change" - fortunately, the Apache mentors of the project are
crucially aware of doing this correctly when it comes to the legal
issues). What the final result will be remains to be seen - I fear a
severely trimmed OOo, but I am also assuming that the AOOo project will
in due course fill those gaps.

Of course, my position with regard to AL2 is my own, and each person in
this documentation project must decide in their own hearts/minds, how
they wish to act. I am not here to sway them in one way or another on
that decision. I merely wanted to point out the oversimplification that
Jean made with regard to the word "published". This oversimplification
could lead people to make a decision with regard to the licensing of
their works, without understanding all of the ramifications behind it.

Now, please excuse my pedantry, and on with the debate !!

Alex

Hi :slight_smile:
Ahh, i thought that when the team publishes a document the individuals CC by SA licence is then re-licensed under a new CC by SA licence as the original licence allows?

Also, "Hey that's not my glass!!! Mine was bigger!! And it was full!!" (quote from THHGttG, thanks Zaphod :slight_smile: ) I might have missed a few ! marks.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I see that I should have read further in this thread before making my own reply to Tom.

Alex makes an important observation.

Much of the content on the OpenOffice.org web properties are under default terms of use that provide broad reuse, including relicensing. Those terms are very much comparable to what is granted with an incoming Apache iCLA.

In addition, there is content that has its own copyright and license notices. The ASF is very attuned to treating such material both respectfully and appropriately with respect to conditions of the licenses that have been offered.

Furthermore, *even* if the license is compatible for inclusion in an ALv2-licensed project, it is a policy of the ASF to never include in its projects material that the license-granter does not want a project to have, even if the license allows it otherwise. That's the policy for third-party works of any origin. Such cases have arisen.

- Dennis

A little more about Tom's terminology and I shall cease discussing more about
copyright than you probably ever wanted to know.

- Dennis

Transfer of copyright is different than licensing a copyrighted work. There
are exclusive rights that obtain to copyright holders. A copyright holder can
license some or all of those rights without surrendering the copyright itself.
Absent such a license, exercise of an exclusive right by anyone but the
copyright owner constitutes infringement. Some infringements are defensible
as "fair use" in some jurisdictions, but only judges decide whether the
defense succeeds.

In the example given by Tom below, (re-)distribution of the documents by TDF
is done under the CC-BY-SA and it is not a relicensing. It is done under the
original license. And communication of the same license to the recipients is
done under the original license. Were the TDF or its contributors to make a
derivative work, the CC-BY-SA requires that derivative to satisfy the
Share-Alike requirement. (It is a form of copyleft.) Any added copyright
would apply to the new material and its combination with the original. But
the original copyright is intact: You can't copyright the parts of a work that
are not your own independent creation (unless you've been transferred that
copyright).

Finally, note that the copyright holder still holds all of the original
exclusive rights and is not restricted by the license granted others. That is
how Sun, which held the copyrights to OpenOffice.org, was able to
privately-license the code base under different terms than the LGPL that was
granted to the general public and used on the open-source OpenOffice.org
distributions. One feature of reciprocal licenses that I favor is the fact
that the recipients have all of the same rights that the copyright owner has,
apart from the ability to transfer the copyright itself.

- Dennis

Dennis, thank you for the extremely relevant discussions about copyright
and licensing, including:

There is absolutely no requirement to file an iCLA with the Apache

Software Foundation in order to use the Apache License v2.0...

The license itself suggests all that is needed to apply it to your own

work...

... independently licensing under ALv2 is *not* the same as contributing

it to Apache.

And all the other info, particularly the difference between copyright and
licensing.

--Jean

I've been reading this, but I am still not clear on some points. As
the originator and author of the Base documents I write, aren't I the
one to whom the copyright belongs?
    When someone contributes to the documents, are they agreeing with
the copyright that is contained in the document when they make their
contribution?
    Why can't the few of us who contribute to the Base documents
seemingly should be considered to be the holders of the Base document
copyrights agree to change the licenses under which these documents are
copyrighted? Isn't this within our rights?

--Dan

Dennis, thank you for the extremely relevant discussions about copyright
and licensing, including:

There is absolutely no requirement to file an iCLA with the Apache

Software Foundation in order to use the Apache License v2.0...

The license itself suggests all that is needed to apply it to your own

work...

... independently licensing under ALv2 is *not* the same as contributing

it to Apache.

And all the other info, particularly the difference between copyright and
licensing.

--Jean

   I've been reading this, but I am still not clear on some points. As
the originator and author of the Base documents I write, aren't I the
one to whom the copyright belongs?

Yes, though other contributors have some rights. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of precisely what the rights of the other contributors are. I've always considered that all are equal shareholders, so to speak, but technically it's more complicated.

   When someone contributes to the documents, are they agreeing with
the copyright that is contained in the document when they make their
contribution?

Yes.

   Why can't the few of us who contribute to the Base documents
seemingly should be considered to be the holders of the Base document
copyrights agree to change the licenses under which these documents are
copyrighted? Isn't this within our rights?

You can. It is within your rights. That's why I suggested making the change.

In fact, you can make that change to the Base Guide whether or not there is a change in the template.

--Jean

Hi all,

Yes, though other contributors have some rights. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of precisely what the rights of the other contributors are. I've always considered that all are equal shareholders, so to speak, but technically it's more complicated.

This determination is very much dependent on the national copyright law and caselaw applicable to the authors, and whether or not the work is seen as a "collective work" (sum of parts indistinguishable from the whole) or a "collaborative work" (individually authored parts distinguishable and identifiable).

    Why can't the few of us who contribute to the Base documents
seemingly should be considered to be the holders of the Base document
copyrights agree to change the licenses under which these documents are
copyrighted? Isn't this within our rights?

You can. It is within your rights. That's why I suggested making the change.

Absolutely. I might however remind people that if they are employees, then they should also check out their national copyright laws and work employment contracts in relation to employee works (in some territories known as "works for hire") because some jurisdictions have stipulated that the copyrights in software/program documentation are by default the property of the employee's respective employer (and therefore, the employee is not free to license the work as he/she wishes).

Alex

Tom wrote

In our case the copyright holder is TDF.

No, The copyright is with the respective authors.

I'd be reluctant to use AL2 for the same reason I would not use it for code.
It is a license whose only feature is to allow selfish entity to siphon the
community works without contributing back.
Beside CC is a license designed for Documentation and these kind of work.
I think that if a change is to be made, CC-BY-SA is enough.

Furthermore, unless you have plan to write a documentation tailored to the
Symphony GUI, that won't help much AOO.
Since either it will fold, or it will end-up being Apache IBM Symphony.

Anyway... I am perfectly incapable or writing good doc, so feel free to
ignore my opinion. But bringing AL2 into the mix is a good way to create
discord, at least with infra and devs.