[TOS] Textbook, upstream, ownership of marks

[Greg DeKoenigsberg]

On Wed, 7 Apr 2010, Karsten Wade wrote:

> On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 05:33:02PM -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>
>> 1. Individual chapters are owned by their respective authors.
>
> In the case of people working for Red Hat who were doing this work as
> part of their @redhat.com jobs, it may actually be Red Hat who is the
> copyright holder.  That's largely how I recall seeing it practiced.
> Red Hat's lawyers will certainly have an opinion.  Mine?  I don't
> care, since it is appropriately licensed to be freed forever.

I think this is likely to be true for Redhatters.  We may assign copyright 
dually to Red Hat and the author or something.  I'll look into it.

>> 2. The collective textbook -- most importantly, the title and its
>> trademark, and the right to decide what gets published under that mark --
>> are owned by an entity that can protect and sustain that brand.  I propose
>> that this will be Red Hat, since Red Hat paid for the time of the majority
>> of the authors to write the first version of the textbook.
>
> This is really a larger discussion about the Teaching Open Source
> mark, right?

Related, but not the same.  They are two separate marks.

> I'm happy to have Red Hat do that job, they are pretty good at it, in
> my experience.
>
>> 3. Because all of the chapters are individual works, they could all be
>> taken and remixed into another textbook without any permission.  Which
>> means that anybody would have the full right to fork the text -- i.e.
>> create a new text called "Fidelio College's Open Source Textbook", so long
>> as the original authors receive the appropriate attribution in the new
>> textbook.
>
> I think I see the distinction.  Being largely individual works,
> remixing and attributing is easier than if the work were all mixed up.
> Theoretically, anyway, since some of us wrote bits all over that might
> be copyrightable.  In practice, it is probably easier for a remixer to
> just attribute all copyright holders, but one could e.g. remix the
> book without the "Fixing the Code" chapter and drop Jeff Sheltren from
> the attribution downstream.  Not sure if this point matters?
>
>> 4. How we work "Teaching Open Source" as an organization into the
>> "ownership" of the text is a difficult problem, because TOS is not a
>> formalized legal organization, but a group of folks working together.
>> For that reason, I don't think it makes sense to have TOS as a copyright
>> holder, but it is important to give this group some recognition.  Is
>> hosting the textbook at TOS sufficient for that purpose?
>
> Another note, Red Hat has used a consistent bit of text that I think
> folks have largely been happy with:  "Copyright (c) YYYY Red Hat,
> inc. and others."  The "and others" covers all other copyright
> contributions, and source control identifies who did what.
>
> As part of putting it's name on the work and stewarding the mark, Red
> Hat is taking on some responsibility to respond to threats against the
> copyright or the mark.  At the same time, it is appropriate to note
> that others have copyright, which you can discern at the worst by
> turning to Red Hat for details.  (Something like that.)

Hm, yes, useful.  Thanks for this.

>> Red Hat paid for a large chunk of the writing of this book, so this is our
>> attempt to ensure that we receive some brand recognition for it, while
>> still ensuring the freedom to fork that is required to make for a truly
>> open project.
>>
>> Does anyone -- most specifically, authors -- disagree with this position?
>> Because I'm going to be talking to Red Hat lawyers in the not-too-distant
>> future, and I want to make sure that we have consensus.  And if we don't
>> have consensus, I want to work through it before I commit to sitting down
>> in front of lawyers, who don't like wasting time on people who don't have
>> their stuff together.  :)
>
> I think that's fair, as an author, but I'm also clearly biased.
> Regardless, I think the license provides the sufficient freedoms.

Thanks for the input.  :)

--g

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