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The author IMHO can relicense their code to whatever their like. Based on package.json only one author mentioned, Buu Nguyen <buunguyen@gmail.com> [1]https://

The author IMHO can relicense their code to whatever their like. Based on package.json only one author mentioned, Buu Nguyen <buunguyen@gmail.com> [1]https://github.com/ovity/octotree/blob/master/package.json https://github.com/ovity/octotree/blob/master/package.json

013a 6y ago
There are (at least) 66 distinct contributors, according to the commit history.
- jhardy54 6y ago
  Yep, lots of them are still the most recent author according to git-blame too: https://github.com/christianbundy/octotree/issues/1#issuecomment-719981875 https://github.com/christianbundy/octotree/issues/1#issuecom...
- cooltrbl 6y ago
  IMHO author have the ownership/copyright/legal, contributor just contribute the code not ownership of the software
monoideism 6y ago
I didn't flag your comment below, but just to be clear, at least in the US the law considers any individual contributor to be the copyright holder of their own code. They can assign or license it to someone else, but they're the original copyright owners of that code.
laughinghan 6y ago
Copyright ownership is not a matter of your opinion. It is settled law, mutually recognized by the 179 countries (out of the 195 in the world) who have signed the Berne Convention [1]. Copyright ownership is established as soon as a work is "fixed in a tangible medium of expresssion" [2]—in other words, as soon as the contributor wrote it on their laptop. The "author" entry in the package.json file is irrelevant. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention [2]: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/10/03/with-copyright-what-does-tangible-mean/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/10/03/with-copyright-wh...
- user5994461 6y ago
  1) There's definitely not 179 countries recognizing US copyright. 2) The Berne convention is a farce, it doesn't define what's supposed to be enforced or how. It's up to each European country to do their own thing. You really can't say that copyright is anything settled or mutually recognized across the world. It's quite a mess and it's really complicated.
  - gspr 6y ago
    Nothing you wrote is a meaningful retort to the comment you replied to. Opinion at best.
avmich 6y ago
> The author IMHO can relicense their code to whatever their like. Assume it's true and consider what it can lead to. Person A writes code under GPL. Person B extends that code significantly, also under GPL. Person A relicenses his code to a closed source. Now person B, of course, is the rightful owner of his own extensions, but they don't make sense without person A's code. So suddenly person B's work greatly decreases in value. I'd assume it's not as simple as just relicensing one's own code; other contributions, depending on that, should be taken into account. Or you can't just relicense.
- arghwhat 6y ago
  While broken, I suppose this is what would happen: 1. Person A writes project X under GPL 2. Person B extends project X under GPL 3. Person A removes all traces of contributions from project X and releases under non-GPL 4. Person B rightfully continues to use project X under GPL, possibly even hosting a fork and continuing collaboration. (I'm not sure if step 3 is feasible - while person A is free to use their own copyrighted work however they please, it might not be possibly to legally erase all trace of foreign contributions.) --- What normally should happen is that Person A needs to contact all contributors, and have them agree to the relicense their contributions. If all authors agree, then there is no issue. However, step 4 still applies - everyone receiving the code under GPL is free to keep using (and distributing) it under GPL. Only contributions done to the relicensed work will be uniquely protected by the new license.
- ajarmst 6y ago
  My understanding is that such relicensing rapidly becomes impossible once there are more than a very few significant contributors. Most proponents of Open Source licenses would consider this a feature, not a bug. In any event, this is one of the reasons that maintainers of major projects (including GNU, IIRC) frequently require copyright assignment as a requirement for copyrightable contributions.
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    > Most proponents of Open Source licenses would consider this a feature, ... Indeed ... > ... maintainers of major projects (including GNU, IIRC) frequently require copyright assignment as a requirement for copyrightable contributions. ... and many folks, including myself, refuse to agree to any such agreements. Personally, I'd prefer BSD, MIT, or similar anyways but... if a project is GPL, one of the best ways to ensure that it remains GPL is for individual contributors to retain their copyright on any contributions. Take those paragons of open source, VMware [0] and the "open-vm-tools" [1] project, for example. For a variety of reasons, various components are under different licenses: > The code is being released under GPL v2 and GPL v2 compatible licenses. To be more specific, the Linux kernel modules are being released under the GPL v2, while almost all of the user level components are being released under the LGPL v2.1. The SVGA and mouse drivers have been available under the X11 license for quite some time. There are certain third party components released under BSD style licenses, to which VMware has in some cases contributed, and will continue to distribute with open-vm-tools. Okay, so it sounds like it's all open source and should remain that way so I shouldn't have any concerns about contributing bugfixes, enhancements, patches, etc., right? Wait for it... > Do I need to sign something before making a contribution? > Yes. We have a standard contribution agreement that covers all contributions made to the project. It gives VMware and you joint copyright interests in the code you are contributing. The agreement also gives VMware flexibility with licensing and also helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues that may arise in the future. There it is. Nice choice of wording, by the way: it gives VMware "flexibility" with licensing and "helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues". VMware certainly is fond of "flexibility with licensing"' as history has shown. -- Besides all of the other arguments, I think it's completely absurd that an individual should be required to enter into a one-sided legal agreement with a large corporation just to contribute some code -- even just two or three lines -- that they've already written and just want to give away. -- [0]: That's sarcasm, just to be clear! [1]: https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools
arghwhat 6y ago
If you have received any contributions, no matter how small, then you are no longer the sole author. All copyright holders must agree in order to relicense unless all such holders signed a contributor license agreement which signs over all rights to the original author, and as multiple contributions have been made. Every single contributor must be contacted, and they must all agree. (Also, of course note that relicensing does not invalidate previous licenses - if I have a copy from when it was under AGPL, then nothing will ever change that.)

013a 6y ago

There are (at least) 66 distinct contributors, according to the commit history.

jhardy54 6y ago
Yep, lots of them are still the most recent author according to git-blame too: https://github.com/christianbundy/octotree/issues/1#issuecomment-719981875 https://github.com/christianbundy/octotree/issues/1#issuecom...
cooltrbl 6y ago
IMHO author have the ownership/copyright/legal, contributor just contribute the code not ownership of the software

monoideism 6y ago

I didn't flag your comment below, but just to be clear, at least in the US the law considers any individual contributor to be the copyright holder of their own code. They can assign or license it to someone else, but they're the original copyright owners of that code.

laughinghan 6y ago

Copyright ownership is not a matter of your opinion. It is settled law, mutually recognized by the 179 countries (out of the 195 in the world) who have signed the Berne Convention [1]. Copyright ownership is established as soon as a work is "fixed in a tangible medium of expresssion" [2]—in other words, as soon as the contributor wrote it on their laptop. The "author" entry in the package.json file is irrelevant. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention [2]: https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/10/03/with-copyright-what-does-tangible-mean/ https://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2017/10/03/with-copyright-wh...

user5994461 6y ago
1) There's definitely not 179 countries recognizing US copyright. 2) The Berne convention is a farce, it doesn't define what's supposed to be enforced or how. It's up to each European country to do their own thing. You really can't say that copyright is anything settled or mutually recognized across the world. It's quite a mess and it's really complicated.
- gspr 6y ago
  Nothing you wrote is a meaningful retort to the comment you replied to. Opinion at best.

avmich 6y ago

> The author IMHO can relicense their code to whatever their like. Assume it's true and consider what it can lead to. Person A writes code under GPL. Person B extends that code significantly, also under GPL. Person A relicenses his code to a closed source. Now person B, of course, is the rightful owner of his own extensions, but they don't make sense without person A's code. So suddenly person B's work greatly decreases in value. I'd assume it's not as simple as just relicensing one's own code; other contributions, depending on that, should be taken into account. Or you can't just relicense.

arghwhat 6y ago
While broken, I suppose this is what would happen: 1. Person A writes project X under GPL 2. Person B extends project X under GPL 3. Person A removes all traces of contributions from project X and releases under non-GPL 4. Person B rightfully continues to use project X under GPL, possibly even hosting a fork and continuing collaboration. (I'm not sure if step 3 is feasible - while person A is free to use their own copyrighted work however they please, it might not be possibly to legally erase all trace of foreign contributions.) --- What normally should happen is that Person A needs to contact all contributors, and have them agree to the relicense their contributions. If all authors agree, then there is no issue. However, step 4 still applies - everyone receiving the code under GPL is free to keep using (and distributing) it under GPL. Only contributions done to the relicensed work will be uniquely protected by the new license.
ajarmst 6y ago
My understanding is that such relicensing rapidly becomes impossible once there are more than a very few significant contributors. Most proponents of Open Source licenses would consider this a feature, not a bug. In any event, this is one of the reasons that maintainers of major projects (including GNU, IIRC) frequently require copyright assignment as a requirement for copyrightable contributions.
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  > Most proponents of Open Source licenses would consider this a feature, ... Indeed ... > ... maintainers of major projects (including GNU, IIRC) frequently require copyright assignment as a requirement for copyrightable contributions. ... and many folks, including myself, refuse to agree to any such agreements. Personally, I'd prefer BSD, MIT, or similar anyways but... if a project is GPL, one of the best ways to ensure that it remains GPL is for individual contributors to retain their copyright on any contributions. Take those paragons of open source, VMware [0] and the "open-vm-tools" [1] project, for example. For a variety of reasons, various components are under different licenses: > The code is being released under GPL v2 and GPL v2 compatible licenses. To be more specific, the Linux kernel modules are being released under the GPL v2, while almost all of the user level components are being released under the LGPL v2.1. The SVGA and mouse drivers have been available under the X11 license for quite some time. There are certain third party components released under BSD style licenses, to which VMware has in some cases contributed, and will continue to distribute with open-vm-tools. Okay, so it sounds like it's all open source and should remain that way so I shouldn't have any concerns about contributing bugfixes, enhancements, patches, etc., right? Wait for it... > Do I need to sign something before making a contribution? > Yes. We have a standard contribution agreement that covers all contributions made to the project. It gives VMware and you joint copyright interests in the code you are contributing. The agreement also gives VMware flexibility with licensing and also helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues that may arise in the future. There it is. Nice choice of wording, by the way: it gives VMware "flexibility" with licensing and "helps avoid any copyright/licensing related issues". VMware certainly is fond of "flexibility with licensing"' as history has shown. -- Besides all of the other arguments, I think it's completely absurd that an individual should be required to enter into a one-sided legal agreement with a large corporation just to contribute some code -- even just two or three lines -- that they've already written and just want to give away. -- [0]: That's sarcasm, just to be clear! [1]: https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools

arghwhat 6y ago

If you have received any contributions, no matter how small, then you are no longer the sole author. All copyright holders must agree in order to relicense unless all such holders signed a contributor license agreement which signs over all rights to the original author, and as multiple contributions have been made. Every single contributor must be contacted, and they must all agree. (Also, of course note that relicensing does not invalidate previous licenses - if I have a copy from when it was under AGPL, then nothing will ever change that.)