Why in the world you should have a vote: was RE: Please don'tchange Beastie to another crap logo suchas NetBSD!!!

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Anthony
> Atkielski
> Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2005 3:46 AM
> To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Why in the world you should have a vote: was RE: Please
> don'tchange Beastie to another crap logo suchas NetBSD!!!
>
>
>
> It surprises and worries me that anyone does it, for precisely the
> reasons that you describe.  Should I ever contribute code to FreeBSD,
> I'll just assign the copyright, or release the code to the public
> domain.  I have to wonder about the motivations of someone who says he
> wants to contribute to a Great Cause but then insists on retaining his
> copyright.
>

I'm sure in those instances that there's nothing wrong, but I am
concerned
that there doesen't seem to be effort to disclosing the copyrights in
a central and obvious location.  (and no, buried in a readme file that
is written to the root of the installed filesystem isn't where I'm
talking
about.  We don't want to put up any speed bumps to a company that wants
to
use the code in a product.

I did know about the networking code, I've seen those other copyrights
before.  But I didn't know that it had got further than that.

> Remember that in some jurisdictions, copyright reverts to the author
> after a certain number of years, no matter what he says to the
> contrary.
> This includes the U.S.; see 17 USC 203.
>

Whic could probably be got around easily by having the FreeBSD foundation
pay him a dollar for software development, in which case he can simply
say the entire project is a work for hire.

Ted