On 27 Jun 2006 19:04:27 +0200, Lex Spoon lex@cc.gatech.edu wrote:
Oops, my previous message counted authorship in a 3.7u1 image. Here are the counts for 3.9 full the counts. Congratulations to Andreas for surpassing the "undated" entries. :)
It's an interesting list, but legally doesn't say a lot I think. The problem of course is that when you're employed (as a programmer), the default assumption is that the property rights of any code you write belongs with the employer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire). And as you don't know whether code was or wasn't written during evening hours, to be on the safe side one would need to have a statement by the employer either to the effect that the license change is ok or that the work is not regarded as being the property of the employer (for an example, see the boilerplate text attached to the GPL - http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC4).
For example, while Squeak Central has always stated that they were careful to separate proprietary code from public code during their stint at Disney, it was never stated that Disney was not the owner of the public code. So we have to assume they are, which means that for any of the work done by any SqC member during that time we'd need a license grant under the APSL from Disney, not the person who has his/her initials on the code.
Regards,
Cees