On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
Free software is usually a series of derivative works rather than a work of joint authorship. It doesn't make much sense, but that's how I understand it to work. (IANAL and when the law is as nonsensical as this, I don't intend to become one!)
In this case I think RMS/Eben Moglen are as much to blame as the law (they're the ones that invented the copyleft, aren't they?). Treating a collaboration of 100 authors as 99 derivative works gives everyone a headache. Traditional works that have this many authors generally get around the problem by the formation of a single entity to own the copyright (usually as a work for hire).