[License-discuss] BSD 3-clause and copyright notices

[Zluty Sysel]

Thanks for the reply.

On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 11:22 AM, Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> wrote:
> On 01/10/15 14:27, Zluty Sysel wrote:
>> distributed) product. Given this, let me rephrase: Can we allow these
>> customers not to reproduce the BSD license text even if our AUTHORS
>> file contains names and email addresses of people outside of our
>> company? Because that's really all we're after here, allowing certain
>> customers not to have to mention that they are using our libraries.
>
> No. If you accept code into your codebase under the BSD licence, then
> users of that code have to comply with the license, because you are no
> longer able to offer a waiver for the code to which you do not own the
> copyright. You have three possible options:

What if we accepted contributions from individuals but only
"acknowledged" their work in a special "THANKS" or "ACKNOWLEDGEMENT"
file without modifying at all the "(c) TheCompany" in the license
itself and therefore not granting any ownership rights to the
contributors? Assuming contributors weren't discouraged by that, would
that be compatible with the BSD license?

We might be trying to remove the open source essence from the license
here, but since I'm not an expert and I really want this to become a
reality, I am ready to grasp at straws to push it forward.

> * Pick a project license which does not require attribution (that
> basically means a Public Domain dedication); or

If I'm not mistaken the zlib license would fit our requirements since
it does not require attribution, it only encourages it. I might be
wrong though.
Would the zlib license not be usable in the EU?

> * Require copyright assignment or a very broad copyright license to all
> contributions, so that you can continue to offer the waiver; or

If we did that we wouldn't need the waiver anymore I believe, from a
previous response in this thread. Because then we'd be the sole
copyright owners and therefore the only ones authorized to enforce our
copyright, we could simply choose not to do so.

> * Require contributors to give a limited waiver solely for the
> attribution clause.

Maybe i have misunderstood the previous option. What would be the
difference between this option and the previous one? Is it that in the
last one the contributor still owns the rights to his/her code but
waivers the right to be present in notices for binary distributions?
And the previous one makes him or her give the ownership rights
completely?

In any case would the last 2 options be compatible with BSD and open
source in general? Because that could work for us.

Thanks!

Zluty