revOnline and Open Source

[Mark Schonewille]

Hi Robert,

Anonymous works are still copyrighted by the anonymous author. If the 
author ever decides to reveal him/herself, he can claim this copyright.

Contributions to RevOnline are not anonymous. If need be, they can be 
traced back to an account and a user. This makes it easier to claim 
copyright.

I don't think that public knowledge voids any patents. If you have a new 
idea and can prove that the idea is yours, you can claim the patent.

I wouldn't want to force people to decide on anything when they release 
their software. If they don't include an open source license, then let 
them just have the copyright. That's also a type of freedom people 
(authors) are entitled to.

(I'm no expert on legal issues).

--
Best regards,

Mark Schonewille

Economy-x-Talk Consulting and Software Engineering
Homepage: http://economy-x-talk.com
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On 7/31/2013 15:49, Robert Mann wrote:
> Oups! i'm surprised. I thought the opposite would be true :: if nothing
> specified, it's deemed "public knowledge"?
>
> As far as patents are concerned, once a mechanism is documented on line, it
> is deemed to be public knowledge and thus no more patentable (one could do
> it but anybody knowing the prior publication and proving it would be able to
> challenge the patent).
>
> Now it is true that copyrights protect the actual "wording" you use in a
> document, and is applicable to softwares. And copyright applies whether or
> not you actually put the copyright logo name and year.
>
> On the frontier :: if the name of the author is not specified in the stack,
> then it'll be hard to argue against common knowledge.
>
> Clearly it would simplify to be able to add at the publication step a
> corresponding OSS declaration.
>
> I strangely assumed so far that contributions at revOnline were for the
> common good, thus freely re-usable common knowledge. Are there any other
> folks around who though so?
>