[TOS] Textbook authors: Copyright Assignment, please respond

[Chris Tyler]

On Thu, 2009-09-17 at 23:29 +0100, Ross Gardler wrote:
> 2009/9/17 Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk at redhat.com>:
> 
> > * This also requires a single copyright holder -- i.e. the party with whom
> > the CLA is binding.  Which would require all authors to sign away their
> > copyright.
> 
> This is incorrect.
> 
> There is no need for authors to sign away their copyright, they need
> only grant a sufficient rights to release the copyright under the
> agreed licence. More information on how CLAs work is at
> http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/cla.xml
> 
> As a community we already discussed and agreed that individual authors
> will retain their copyright, so the CLA will *not* require copyright
> assignment, only licence grants.

If every author grants CC-BY-SA, why do we need a CLA? The complete book
is a collection of CC-BY-SA documents. (Surely we don't need a physical
signature on paper to believe that license is granted -- I have 3000
packages on two computers right here, and not a physical signature in
sight!)

--
Chris