Re: Sample contracts for sponsored development?
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <[email protected]> Fri, 30 Apr 2004 16:25:51 +0900
| Newsgroups | gmane.comp.misc.free-software-business |
|---|---|
| Organization | The XEmacs Project |
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
>>>>> "Norbert" == Norbert Bollow <[email protected]> writes: Norbert> The project has a policy requiring copyright assignment, Norbert> so clearly our sponsor's contract needs to say that the Norbert> sponsor will not own the copyright on the sponsored code. Norbert> On the other hand, the sponsor would like to give us Norbert> source code for a widget lib that implements the Norbert> _corporate_identity_ aspects of their GUIs which they Norbert> need to have working on the DotGNU platform. While there Norbert> apparantly aren't any real business secrets in this Norbert> source code, clearly they want to keep it proprietary. I really don't see the problem. File off the serial numbers before distributing, eg, replace identifying strings with "This Product Is Not Endorsed By Anybody"---that should convince downstream users to put their own message in ;-). If you don't do that, then lazy people are going to use the trademarks and/or logos improperly when experimenting, and the Internet being what it is, this stuff will leak out. If it's not that simple, for example somehow the widgets themselves are bound up with the corporate identity (don't tell me it's Amazon.com with one-click shopping? :-), you're going to have to come up with other example widgets, no? -- Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp University of Tsukuba Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN Ask not how you can "do" free software business; ask what your business can "do for" free software.