Fix this: The Regents of the University of California. Allrights reserved.

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Christian
> Walther
> Sent: Sunday, May 27, 2007 3:20 AM
> To: questions at freebsd.org
> Subject: Re: Fix this: The Regents of the University of California.
> Allrights reserved.
> 
> 
> On 27/05/07, Erik Trulsson <ertr1013 at student.uu.se> wrote:
> > On Sun, May 27, 2007 at 02:38:33AM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> > >
> [...]
> >
> > As I understand it the phrase 'All rights reserved' was 
> required by older
> > copyright rules but is obsolete these days.
> > I.e. changing the wording so that 'All rights reserved' applies to both
> > copyright statements is pointless since it does not have any legal
> > significance any more.
> 
> Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "(C) - All rights reserved"
> something entirely different from the BSD License under which FreeBSD
> is licensed? This license grants it's users some rights very
> explicitely. I know that I can still be a Copyright owner when I
> choose to distribute a piece of work under a different license, but
> can I say that all rights are reserved when I actually do something
> else?

Unfortunately, WPTO did not create a new category of copyright with
software, they tried stuffing it into the same existing copyright
framework that covers books, periodicals, etc.  Thus stuff like first
rights to publish, which have significance with copyrighted written
materials, are meaningless with software.  And, things like patents,
ie: software patents, which have meaning with copyrighted software,
are meaningless with books and articles.

With FreeBSD, the decision to make software subject to copyright laws
means that when you want to give software away you have to find a 
convenient entity to give the software copyright ownership.  So what was
historically done with BSD software is when someone wrote a piece of
it they would sign over copyright rights to UCB which would immediately
license the stuff under a license that basically revoked all rights 
that a normal copyright owner would have.

The same thing is done these days with the FreeBSD Project.

It is a shame that in the beginning the Copyright people didn't
recognize at once that software is nothing more than a device, and
basically state that like all devices, it could be patented but
not copyrighted.  The failure of copyright to be able to properly
deal with software has given rise to a lot of bad side effects, such
as software patents (where the person is basically trying to have
their cake and eat it too - benefiting both from copyright and
patent on the same piece of software) and laws like the DMCA which
classify software and explicitly categorize it as a device, so
they can ban it.  (The US Constitution explicitly forbids banning
of materials like books and articles that carry copyright)

Ted