Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.184]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 387769F959D; Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:51:08 -0400 (AST) Received: from postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.184]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 37753-01; Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:50:50 -0400 (AST) Received: from oxford.xeocode.com (unknown [62.232.55.118]) by postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 892659F95B9; Fri, 9 Nov 2007 11:50:58 -0400 (AST) Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=oxford.xeocode.com) by oxford.xeocode.com with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1IqW8C-0000Nt-FJ; Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:50:52 +0000 To: "Greg Sabino Mullane" Cc: , Subject: Re: The definition of PGDG In-Reply-To: <1577300971a22a6b93645e8256220378@biglumber.com> (Greg Sabino Mullane's message of "Thu\, 8 Nov 2007 15\:38\:29 -0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.1 (gnu/linux) X-Draft-From: ("nnimap+mail01.enterprisedb.com:INBOX.advocacy" 1364) References: <1577300971a22a6b93645e8256220378@biglumber.com> From: Gregory Stark Organization: EnterpriseDB Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:50:51 +0000 Message-ID: <87pryj4dus.fsf@oxford.xeocode.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Archive-Number: 200711/43 X-Sequence-Number: 12860 "Greg Sabino Mullane" writes: > Simon Riggs wrote: >> The main reason is that Slony is Copyrighted PGDG, so we >> own the code and it is of course BSD licenced. > > As an aside, how can copyright be assigned to a non-defined > group (a concept really, as near as I can tell). Is the PGDG > actually defined anywhere yet? If not, anyone want to take > a stab at it? As a non-lawyer I don't think this is an issue. The group exists, it's just that it's (merely) a group of individual people. Ie, the copyright is owned jointly by every contributor and that's all the notice is saying. The PGDG doesn't exist separately from the members as a legal person like a corporation might. It may be that the notice is insufficient for some legal purposes because it doesn't explicitly name a legal person. However under the Berne convention notices are actually irrelevant to claiming ownership anyways. The only impact an insufficient notice might have is to make it harder to sue for damages (we would still be able to sue to stop further infringement but not damages until after the notice). I suspect it's not actually true that it's insufficient notice but that's something a lawyer should be able to answer easily. I also am entirely skeptical that we care about being able to sue for damages. If this were a GPL project it might matter more. But given that it's BSD we're only interested in the copyright notices to protect ourselves from someone else claiming they wrote it and we're infringing. Not to be able to pursue someone else for infringing on our copyright. -- Gregory Stark EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com Ask me about EnterpriseDB's Slony Replication support!