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<p>Gil,</p>
<p>Thanks for asking the question; it is a topic that has always
fascinated me. My belief based on my personal experience only is
that software may be unusual in authors <i>not</i> feeling that
they have a strong sense of ownership of their work, regardless of
who the legal owner is. I learned very early in my legal career
that some forms of authorship (books and music were my experience)
seem to be very personal and the authors very personally hurt by
what they saw as misuse of their work. These are difficult clients
because they want their hurt fixed, but the legal system isn't
very good at that.<br>
</p>
<p>I don't know if it's the same phenomenon, but there is also a
propensity in some industries to see similarity, and think their
work was copied, when in the clear light of day it's simply not
the case. I joke that every successful movie has a copyright
infringement suit brought by someone who imagined similarity when
there was nothing there. I don't doubt the sincerity of the belief
of the person who thinks they were copied, but when you read the
cases (and there are plenty), the similarities are very thin.</p>
<p>I've always wondered if software is different because it's more
functional. There are more parameters that have to be met, so
maybe it seems more like solving a problem rather than an exercise
of pure creativity.<br>
</p>
<p>Pam<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">Pamela S. Chestek
Chestek Legal
PO Box 2492
Raleigh, NC 27602
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:pamela@chesteklegal.com">pamela@chesteklegal.com</a>
919-800-8033
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.chesteklegal.com">www.chesteklegal.com</a></pre>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/1/20 10:50 AM, Gil Yehuda via
License-discuss wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAB--ThYr_pQoShBgJR-o6V5n7LgHhwt5H7zOCqWZCc33vWh74A@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="ltr">Thank you Stuart, you are right. The fear of losing
control is a big part of this. Josh, indeed. All code is based
on other code. This is why there's such a conflict. Russel, I'm
asking about all code authors because there are many ways to
view this.
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>A few times a year I get a report of code on GitHub that
contains a cleartext password to a server or an account my
company owns. I find a (usually) former employee had
published a large bundle of code on her personal GitHub repo
on the day she left the company. I contact her and request
removal of that code -- it leaks a company secret. Most of
the time, it's removed right away.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Sometimes she'll say, "but it's my code." and I'll say,
technically it's work for hire that you assigned the
copyrights to the company, but I understand you feel like
it's yours. Sharing internal information is a violation of
an agreement you signed. Also, it contains a cleartext
password in the code. Do you want people to think you are
the kind of coder who puts passwords in code? Or the kind of
coder who takes the employer's code and publishes it without
permission first? If you would have asked, we would have
reviewed the code and potentially given you permission to
publish it once you remove the confidential information. But
this was an unauthorized publication, we didn't put an open
source license on it, no one can use it unless we do.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Usually that works, but once in a while I'll hear "No.
it's my code, I can do whatever I want with it." and I'll
say: Do you think you'd get in trouble if someone used the
password leaked in your code as part of a larger campaign
that helped them break in to our systems and expose user
data? "Um, I guess so." It this publication that important
to you that you'd take that risk? And then she takes the
code down.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I could simply issue a DMCA takedown to nuke the code,
but I'm interested when an engineer insists "that code is
mine" even when it is a liability. This is a different case
than we typically talk about, but I bring it to show that
some people are attached to their code since they invest
considerable energy into it -- and fear that letting go
removes their control of the code. Indeed this is the
reality of the corporate-employed engineer -- but it's not
always the way the perceive that reality. I'm not suggesting
this is ideal, but I think control and trust are factors
here. </div>
<div><br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
<p style="margin:0px;font-family:"Verizon
NHG
DS",Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1em;text-align:left;line-height:100%;color:black"><span
style="font-weight:bold">Gil Yehuda: </span>I
help with external technology engagement</p>
<p style="margin:0px;font-family:"Verizon
NHG
DS",Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1em;text-align:left;line-height:100%;color:black">From
the <a
href="https://developer.yahoo.com/opensource/docs/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">Open
Source Program Office</a> at Yahoo -->
Oath - -> Verizon Media<br>
</p>
<p
style="margin:0px;text-align:left;line-height:100%;color:black"><br>
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Sat, Feb 29, 2020 at 1:00
PM Russell McOrmond <<a
href="mailto:russellmcormond@gmail.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">russellmcormond@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">
<div dir="ltr"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at
11:31 AM Gil Yehuda via License-discuss <<a
href="mailto:license-discuss@lists.opensource.org"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">license-discuss@lists.opensource.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid
rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">I'm exploring the psychological
relationship between the author of a work, and the
work. i.e. parsing the phrase "my open source code"
and would like your thoughts. </div>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
What you appear to be asking is how proprietary people
feel about the software they have authored.<br>
<br>
</div>
<div>Google has one of the early questions I asked in
gnu.misc.discuss back in 1992:</div>
<div><a
href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gnu.misc.discuss/PWcsCnGzDkI/DwXUQ5Lg_OwJ"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/gnu.misc.discuss/PWcsCnGzDkI/DwXUQ5Lg_OwJ</a></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I wanted to add a GPL license to my derivative of
software that was dedicated to the public domain, as I
wanted to ensure that follow-on contributions would not
be able to be made proprietary (meaning, software
licensed primary for the benefit of a proprietor). The
only restriction I wanted was the restriction to not
allow personal/proprietary restrictions on derivatives
(freedom from). This was a concept that wasn't as clear
with the 4 software freedoms from the FSF at the time,
but became much more clear with the Debian Free Software
guidelines that became the OSD. This includes the
non-discriminatory core of the OSD, understanding that
demands for discrimination are personal to a proprietor
and thus make the license proprietary.</div>
<div><br>
<br>
I liked what I learned in gnu.misc.discuss back in 1992,
and became an active part of the movement as a software
contributor and policy advocate. In 2002 I was the
private-sector co-founder of GOSLING (Getting Open
Source Logic INto Government) <a
href="http://goslingcommunity.org/#content"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://goslingcommunity.org/</a> ,
and have been a witness at various parliamentary
committees, met many members of Canada's federal
parliament, and have been both a volunteer and paid
consultant to bureaucracies on FLOSS policy.<br>
</div>
<div><br>
<br>
While I did these things, and I enjoy receiving credit
for the contributions I have made, I do not at all feel
proprietary about any of the results. Whether my work
is encoded in the form of machine readable instructions
(software) or human readable instructions (policy,
submissions to government consultations, etc), I
consider the work to have more value the more it is
built upon, and the less personal to me the results
become.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>One of my influences is Lawrence Lessig and his "Code
and other laws of cyberspace". <a
href="http://codev2.cc/" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">http://codev2.cc/</a><br>
I believe there are many things in common between
software code and legal code.<br>
<br>
If the elected official who introduced a bill in a
parliament kept referring to it as "my law" after it
passed and became the law of the land, people would not
be respectful of that proprietary perspective. If there
was preamble that said that the policy encoded in the
bill could not be introduced in the governments of
unfriendly parliaments,t he preamble would be
ridiculed. I have the same view about software code
which I consider to be part of the rules that govern our
lives, and while I don't ridicule people for feeling
proprietary about their contributions as that is not yet
the common culture, it is not something that I
personally respect.<br>
<br>
I am grateful for when I'm in the company of fellow
long-time FLOSS advocates who feel the same way, and who
don't need to have explained why the personal
desires/politics/etc of an individual software author
should not be a consideration once software has been
released and is used publicly.<br>
<br>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
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</blockquote>
</div>
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