how much right do I have on my project, if there are patches by others?

[John Cowan]

Ben Tilly scripsit:

> : Under the definition of section 101, a work is "joint" if the
> : authors collaborated with each other, or if each of the authors
> : prepared his or her contribution with the knowledge and intention
> : that it would be merged with the contributions of other authors
> : as "inseparable or interdependent parts of a unitary whole."
> 
> This is not how open source software is developed.  

It is, however, how patches are accepted and processed: patch authors,
if the patch is substantial and is accepted into the original work,
do meet the definition of joint authorship.

I think also that people who submit modules for the Linux kernel
also meet the second part of the definition: there is relatively
little kernel code that was originally developed for a separate
purpose outside the kernel.

-- 
John Cowan                              <cowan at ccil.org>
            http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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