[wp-hackers] GPL licensing.

[Mike Little]

Carthik Sharma wrote:
> Should ==  2. To be obliged; must.
> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=should
> Also,
> http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=should&x=15&y=17
> 
> Carthik.
> 
> On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 10:46:48 -0600, Alex King <alex at alexking.org> wrote:
> 
>>should != must
>>
>>--Alex
>>
>>http://www.alexking.org/

In this case it *does* equal 'must'. If it isn't copyrighted then it 
cannot be GPL. The legality of the GPL relies on there being a copyright 
owner who has the right to enforce the license.

The problem comes when you get a one man product expanded into a 
community effort. It can get messy as to who contributed what and thus 
owns the copyright, (you /can/ then get personal politics involved, but 
not always).

For example, I understand that (almost) all of the original B2 would 
have been copyright Michel Valdrighi. Though there is only one file 
which claims that (and that copyright notice was added by Alex). Stuff 
that is clearly imported from other packages is correctly identified 
(class.POP3, xmlrpc and xmlrpcs)

On the Wordpress side, again only third party imports and my link 
manager stuff have copyright notices (though my original references to 
the GPL have been removed).

Later stuff has a lot of contributors, Matt, myself, and lots of others.

I suspect that the best for WordPress would be to come up with a 
copyright notice which acknowledges Michel's copyright of those 
appropriate parts, the major solo contributions where appropriate or 
already existent and perhaps has a general "WordPress project team" 
(like the SquirrelMail Project Team from which project the 
class.POP3.php file comes) for the rest. Someone should check, though, 
whether that entity must 'exist' in some legal frame of reference.

Carthik is correct to raise the subject. This *must* be done for all the 
non third-party source files. Both the copyright notice and the summary 
of and reference to the GNU GPL license file.

Future contributions must be handled the same way too. That is, as has 
already been raised, contributions which want to be part of the 
WordPress 'product' must be either be GPL or compatible (including 
Creative Commons *without* the URL link).

Again, bear in mind that the license is separate from the copyright but 
that without a stated copyright notice (and copyright could, for 
example, be assigned to "The WordPress Project Team"), the GPL cannot be 
enforced.


Mike
-- 
Mike Little
mike at zed1.com
http://zed1.com/journalized/