Regarding the licence and copyright

Basic information

• The "OKlibrary", the entirety of software and accompanying documentation, is under the licence GPLv3, with OK (Oliver Kullmann) as copyright holder.
• The code under "external sources" on the other hand is left unchanged and comes with its own (open source) licence.
• There are certain files incorporated from other (open) sources, and these files are typically adapted to the new environment, and they kept the original (open source) licence and the original copyright statement.

The intention

1. My (OK's) intention is that the OKlibrary shall be always available under a licence similar in spirit to the GPLv3, including all contributions made by internal and external developers.
2. Part of the OKlibrary is the full history of the development as provided by the Git repository; through this medium it shall always be possible to determine the contributions of each developer.
3. The GPL was chosen over the "LGPL" due to the research character of the library, which needs stronger protection for all participants, and also due to special protection against patenting.

The implementation

• It seems that worldwide "the law" knows nothing about public goods like scientific and engineering knowledge provided by the OKlibrary (and, of course, many other open source projects).
• Regarding "open source licences" all what I can see is obscurity, but given the current laws, which only target private property and its protection, this is hard to overcome.
• Projects like the "GPL" try to use the existing laws for the purpose of establishing "public goods"; they are the only current possibility, and thus we have to use them, though they are still just private licences, expressing the laws and general customs of the country of their developers.
• I (OK) am especially critical about "law fetishism", which I see also with the GPL, where the law system becomes, like any part of life, just a means for "wealth creation" (the more "crimes" the better for the lawyers --- and thus for all of us, since we get business).
• However I (OK) acknowledge also the good intention, and the GPLv3 seems currently the best licence for a holistic library like the OKlibrary, with the goal of protecting the intellectual achievements of all contributors.
• An especially unclear point seems the issue of "copyright", where the best solution seems to me to require contributors to assign copyright to me (OK), besides using the GPLv3, in order to guarantee that the library altogether stays available and open for the foreseeable future, despite possible changes in laws.

About the copyright assignment

1. Apparently, being the "copyright owner" essentially means (at least in this context) the ability to change the licence for future releases (this doesn't affect already released packages).
2. Thus, I (OK, the copyright owner of the OKlibrary) could in principle change the licence in the future to for example a proprietary licence; if possible I would exclude this possibility here once and for all, however legally this seems not to be possible.
3. In any case, whatever the legal value of this statement here is, I (OK) state that I will only change the licence terms in the future if this seems necessary to guarantee public availability of the OKlibrary, as well as to guarantee that all contributions of all developers are properly acknowledged (that is, as given by the submission history).
4. Again, apparently, each "file" needs to contain a copyright statement at the beginning; as mentioned I (OK) require this copyright statement to be in my name (and on nobodies else), since the available alternatives seem essentially flawed to me in our situation:
   • "Copyright fragmentarisation", that is, adding somebody to the copyright list who has contributed, seems a nightmare to me (OK):
     1. To check the correctness of the information for each file would be a huge (and useless) administrational effort.
     2. This is especially true in our situation, where small contributions are especially encouraged: Shall correcting a spelling mistake give you copyright? For how long? And if not, where to draw the border??
     3. Especially for a research platform like the OKlibrary, many contributors will be students or research assistants of some supervisor (perhaps performing the changes under commission), and it is infeasible to control this situation.
     4. Finally, having (many) different copyright owners for each file implicates that licence changes will not be possible: This might be alright (and then the whole licence issue seems vain), or, in case of changes in the law it might damage the library (and its contributors).
   • The other alternative would be to assign the copyright to some "independent body".
     1. It seems that there is no "general independent body".
     2. So apparently such independent bodies are created for each case.
     3. I guess it is understandable that I (OK) want to wait with the establishment of something like that until, in a few years or more, there is actually substantial independent participation.

Implications and alternatives

• It seems to me that the copyright assignment is essentially a symbolic step (here), and that actually this symbolic step has a certain meaning:
  1. As already the name "OKlibrary" indicates, the OKlibrary is not just any project where I (OK) happen to be some administrator, but with the OKlibrary I (OK) want to introduce fundamental new principle into the world of SAT solving and constraint solving.
  2. Thus the core developer group (as led by me) will admit only submissions following the "spirit of the library", and will make corrections if needed.
  3. On the other hand, once something is part of the OKlibrary, I (OK) will do my best to "nurture" it.
  For technical details regarding the licence- and copyright-information for files see here.
• Apparently according to the "Berne Convention" every "author" has a "natural copyright" (which isn't lost by the assignment to me (OK)), and this should be especially true in the scientific context.
• Due to the construction of the OKlibrary, there should be ample opportunities if the regime as outlined above is not suitable:
  1. The "holistic" nature of the library makes it possible to create independent clones which run under their own rules (only bound by the licence terms).
  2. Via the inclusion of external sources arbitrary other code can be made available (if under open source licence).
  3. A tighter integration of external sources especially related to the OKlibrary will be provided (once the need arises).

Yet there is not much experience with external forms of collaboration, but it is my (OK's) intention to support many visions different from mine.

Last modified: Sat Oct 29 21:13:53 BST 2011