Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 17:20:55 -0500 From: Kevin Brunelle <kruptos@netzero.net> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: C style continued.... (Craig and Terry) Message-ID: <3A6E03C7.79F32AAE@netzero.net> References: <3.0.6.32.20010123135847.009c9400@mail85.pair.com> <XFMail.010123120822.jhb@FreeBSD.org> <20010123125210.A21362@Odin.AC.HMC.Edu>
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> On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 12:08:22PM -0800, John Baldwin wrote: > > The student owns the work, and no, the professor does not have the > > rught to discriminate against students in this manner (at least not in > > the US.) If it really bothers you, go harrass your counselor, dept > > head, or dean (depending on how important this is to you :). > > At my school at least the school owned all copyrights on all work done > for class[0]. This is pretty standard from what I've gathered. OTOH, > in either case the professor has not basis for his copyright stance since > either the school owns it and no mere professor can dictate licensing > without the school's legal counsel or the student owns it and can simply > void the whole GPL thing by reissuing it under a BSD license since only > a complete zelot would use code under the GPL when it's also available > under a BSD license. > > -- Brooks > > [0] With of course, the obvious exception of work done under contract. Okay, I was not able to find out for certain, but I believe that the school retains the right to own the rights to all work done for classes. And I believe that my teacher said they had a policy stating that the specific professor for the class was the rights holder should they wish to do that. It is that teacher's decision. He said that he has never done it in the past and wasn't interested in doing so -- one of the reasons all the code was GPL'd. I think this is another reason he doesn't like the BSD license, because he loses all rights to the code. Here is part of the response I was finally able to get in writing from him, dealing with that. Yes it came in several parts and was quite long. I even pushed him so hard that he gave over an hour talk on it in the lecture. He never touched on the BSD license for the class. Making it seem like the GPL was the only fair license out there and all the others would result in the collapse of computing or something worse. In the email I got he did touch on the BSD license with one of his points. Some selected points are repeated below, the numbers are his, the sentences between [ and ] are mine. The lecture's point was just his way of making sure that getting the other students to see things my way would not be easy. I do not disagree with the teacher on several of these points. And I won't argue that he is a very good teacher, just inflexable. In point (1) he tries to seem flexable, but the rest of his email and his lecture really force the reader to understand that he is not that flexable. The name has been removed to protect the teacher. ---- (1) I am not hard and fast on any of these issues. If you or any other student has good reasons to deviate from class policy I am normally open but it must be in advance. [As of yet, I cannot get him to elaborate on what a good reason is. All I have gotten from him is that if it is a group project, everyone must agree with it, and talk to him about it. That doesn't mean he will accept it, just think about it.] (3) As you will see we will be working as a team. The GPL shows no favorites. Anyone can use anyone else's work but must also provide the history and the updates so the original autors can also benefit from the work. I do not believe this is the case in the BSD version. [He is right about that (the must provide updates part), that is why I want the BSD. I want my code to be truely free, to be used by the person however they want.] (5) As I understand the US Code, if you modify someone else's code then that someone owns all of the code including the work you added to it. As an instructor I can provide the base in which to start from for every assignment. This is normal in a number of programming classes. If I provide the code base to start from, then the copyrights revert to me since you modified my work. Further, if you perform work per my direction then, as I understand it, I have claim to the copyrights under all conditions. How much of a claim depends how much came from the class, my direction, the style guide, and other factors. If a student provides an example, can other students use it. It becomes very gray. The instructor directed him so he may have some of it, the student did some, most students get help so the helpers may have some of it. It can get complicated. Therefore students should only hand in work that is legal and under the GPL unless prior permission is granted in writing. [Now, this is the dirty part. He made it quite clear in his lecture that if this issue should be pushed this is what he would do. He would give us the start code written by him and GPL'd and we would fill in the hard stuff. Stuck under the GPL, plus he would make sure that each project was implemented under his direction, etc. He made such a point of this in the lecture that I found it hard to believe he was the same person who had claimed he was "not hard and fast on any of these issues."] (7) Work that you perform that is not handed into the class and did not originate from the class in anyway what so ever does not have to be according to the GPL. This work is yours. If you plan to do some great program and sell it for millions of dollars do not hand it in has home work, it is not a requirment of the class. If you have already coded a great program that you are making millions of dollars from, I would like to ask for a donation and by all means do not hand it in as a homework, I will assume it is according to GPL and will take off points if it is clearly not marked. However, for class assignment, you will find that most have been done in the same way for years. You may think you are adding someing new but many times you simply took a similar guided path of those before you. [It never was the class assignments I cared about, it was the final project. Even considering that it would not be some excellent piece of work; if I should change it and want it under another license, I would be unable to. Because it would be a group project, I couldn't claim to own all the code and would be altering someone elses. And once it is GPL'd it is GPL'd for life. If the BSD license was fully accepted by the teacher I would have little or no problem getting the other students I work with to see the benefits of it over the GPL. But as it is, the chances of me convincing students that it is better in the long run to risk a bad grade and oppose the teacher is not good.] ---- Well, that is more fuel for the fire. Enjoy. :-) -Kevin Brunelle -- "Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle and quick to anger." 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