Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sun, 6 Oct 2002 08:01:47 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sun, 6 Oct 2002 08:01:47 -0400 Received: from mx2.elte.hu ([157.181.151.9]:14524 "HELO mx2.elte.hu") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id ; Sun, 6 Oct 2002 08:01:46 -0400 Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 14:18:24 +0200 (CEST) From: Ingo Molnar Reply-To: Ingo Molnar To: "David S. Miller" Cc: Alan Cox , Larry McVoy , Ulrich Drepper , , Linus Torvalds , Subject: Re: BK MetaData License Problem? In-Reply-To: <20021006.045201.26534685.davem@redhat.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1596 Lines: 37 On Sun, 6 Oct 2002, David S. Miller wrote: > Anything you write is automatically copyrighted by you, even if you > don't specifically state it as such. > > That is my basic understanding of copyright law. > > BitMover et al. can't take your copyright powers away from you. yes, this is my understanding as well, but the BK license can require you to license your bits in exchange for allowing you to use the BK product. It already does require 'republishing rights' for the metadata bits in fact. (which is a perfectly fair requirement - Larry needs this assurance to be able to host bkbits in a legally safe way.) the issue is that in the BK repository data and metadata is distinctly separate. The Linux kernel is fully functional without any of the metadata, and the GPL only covers the Linux kernel. And i'd like note it that this situation is not "BK's fault" in any way, it's simply the thing that copyright law says about not explicitly licensed bits. But it's a situation created by BK, and it could be eliminated by the BK license requiring the metadata to be licensed under the same conditions the data itself is licensed. Or we could put this into the Linux kernel license. (which OTOH might violate the GPL.) i'm sure this issue was raised before - eg. what is the legal standing of the commit messages of the BSD kernels? Ingo - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/