The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Steven Schveighoffer]

"Lars Ivar Igesund" wrote
> Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>
>> "Sean Kelly" wrote
>>>> The number of people that have touched the runtime layer of Tango is
>>>> very
>>>> limited.  The upper layers are of no concern for this thread.
>>>
>>> So limited, in fact, that the two Tango members who have not given
>>> permission to use their code have never actually touched the runtime. 
>>> I'm
>>> very diligent about the "author" labels in the runtime modules, so this
>>> is
>>> easy to see.  However, the problem is that there is no way to prove this
>>> to Walter, and he refuses to even look at Tango without permission from
>>> all of us for fear of "taint."  Thus the impasse.
>>
>> Eh?  As far as I know, if you don't put your name on it, you don't own 
>> it.
>
> In many (most) countries, writing it means you have copyright. Whether you
> put your name there or not is irrelevant. Some have even stronger
> protection of the connection between code/work and author.

I would think that only comes into play if someone else publishes the code 
after stealing it from you.  If you release it with someone else's name as 
the copyright holder, I don't see how you can prove your rights.  It 
shouldn't be hard to prove who contributed what since all the history is in 
svn.

To this end, even if Walter DID get permission from all the Tango devs, this 
does not preclude the possibility that someone else's code (not even from 
Tango) was stolen and contributed to Tango.  There is no way to be 100% 
sure, so this whole issue is rather petty to me.

But wouldn't it be enough for all the Tango devs (who didn't write the 
runtime) to put that in a signed statement?  I can't see how releasing *all* 
of Tango in PD (or even the runtime, for that matter, but that's up to the 
devs of the runtime) makes it any more valid.

-Steve