Re: Another job for the Gnome Foundation ?

[jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys)]

Whomever owns the copyright on something can reissue it under any
other copyright they want.

The resulting confusion, as in what happened to the X code, causes
great hassles for all concerned: it was the threat of a fork by XFree86
as well as all the UNIX vendors leaning on TOG, that got this fixed in the
X case.  This also shows how a trustworthy organization, when dissolved,
can cause copyrights to end up under control of an organization that is
not trustworthy, which is why I personally cannot trust any single
organization, no matter how well principled at the time of donation.

If there is more than one owner, then all owners would have to agree
to any changes.

In the X case, the saving grace that caused the UNIX vendors to have enough
clout to fix it was that most of the code was copyright others than
the X Consortium (and thus TOG as its successor).

Hope this clarifies things....
				- Jim

--
Jim Gettys
Technology and Corporate Development
Compaq Computer Corporation
jg@pa.dec.com