[Foundation-l] What's appropriate attribution?

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
<cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> As a matter of fact, I don't believe this is accurate.
>
> As I understand it, the "paternity right" in the
> Finnish section on moral rights in law, implies
> that publication without attribution, can happen
> with explicit permission of the author, but the
> author can rescind that permission at any time.
[snip]

That behaviour is, as I understand it, typical of moral rights (in
places which acknowledge them).  The notion is that you can't contract
away attribution (or other 'moral rights') any less than you can sell
yourself into slavery because attribution (like freedom) is a moral
right and not an economic right.

Some moral rights implementations are potentially very harmful to free
content as we know it: You wouldn't want to be forced to remove an
improved version of a document simply because a sour original author
has decided he dislikes you and that your enhancements are prejudicial
to his reputation. But attribution is not an example of a problematic
right, for the most part.

I think there is an second interrelated issue:  There is a notion in
some places that some nearly invisible and almost always unread "terms
of service" can represent an agreement to abandon your right of
attribution. I think this is bogus even in places where it is
attribution is 'only' an economic right.    However attribution is
handled the principle of least surprise should always be heeded.