Contributed code, etc. (was [Maxima] Teaching differential equations with Maxima)

> > Of course, we can only accept
> > code which belongs to you, which is in the public domain, or which
is
> > under a free software license.  We cannot accept code which is
> > copyrighted by Macsyma, Inc. or Symbolics -- even if it does not
have
> > a MacsymaInc/Symbolics copyright notice: if it was written for them,
> > or by someone who worked for them at the time, we have to presume
> > that they hold the copyright.
>
> Minor point here - I think there were some cases, such as Richard's
TeX
> work, which people allowed Macsyma to use but didn't transfer all
> rights to.  I think that should be OK - unless they were paid for
their
> work as employees or actually transfered the rights to Macsyma.  What
> do you think?

I agree entirely.  I intended that case to be covered by "code which
belongs to you".  I didn't want the language to get too legalistic.
Just because someone donated rights to code to Macsyma Inc. does not
mean that they lost their own rights to it.  Of course, if they were
paid for it by Macsyma Inc., or even if they were just employees of
Macsyma Inc. at the time (even if the code was not part of their
official work), that's a different story.

That said, I do not think we need to be paranoid about all this.  If we
or the copyright holder discovers a piece of "contaminated" code which
has slipped into a Share file *by mistake*, we can remove it.  The first
step in any legal action would be a formal letter from the copyright
holder demanding that we remove the offending code, which we would of
course do immediately.  As Jim points out, we don't have the legal
resources to *fight* a legal action, but we would not fight, just remove
the file.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't be careful, and it *certainly* doesn't
mean that we should play dumb if we are suspicious about the origins of
some code, but let's not be paralyzed by paranoia....

       -s