in reply to Open source code and copyright

When is considerably altered code still under copyright.

That is a matter for an IP lawyer and will almost inevitably vary between jurisdictions. If you go down this route you and your client should take professional legal advice (which this post is not, FTAOD)

Which open source licences allow this approach?

AIUI, the BSD licence will allow you to change the code in any way for any purpose and to any degree you so choose. What it does not do is allow you to claim copyright for works which you have not created. Even if the code is released as public domain you cannot do that. eg. I cannot take Newton's Principia and claim copyright for it even though it is now in the public domain. I am not aware of any licence which will allow someone to claim copyright for something which they haven't written and nor would I expect anyone to release code under such a licence even if it did exist. If I annotate or edit Principia I can copyright my changes but not the original work.

In your shoes, I would point out to the client that they can either have the work without copyright transfer or that they can have it with but in the latter case it will cost them substantially more because you will not be able to base it upon the works of others.

But again, seek professional advice.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Open source code and copyright
by LanX (Saint) on Nov 15, 2019 at 14:45 UTC
    > But again, seek professional advice.

    The commercial volume is too small to pay off legal advice. The payment is not my motivation.

    They already have loads of content in other languages and I think Perl should be presented too.

    > or that they can have it with but in the latter case it will cost them substantially more because you will not be able to base it upon the works of others.

    That's already my approach, just wanted to learn more about licences.

    From another perspective:

    If I were a modules author I would not object to the reuse of code in the tutorial section.

    Cheers Rolf
    (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
    Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice

[reply]
      If I were a modules author I would not object to the reuse of code in the tutorial section.

      Nor would I. However, I would strongly object to someone else claiming copyright of that code.

[reply]
        I agree, the copyright could only cover the alterations and annotations in an educational context.

        IOW another e-learning provider could not reuse this work.

        Cheers Rolf
        (addicted to the Perl Programming Language :)
        Wikisyntax for the Monastery FootballPerl is like chess, only without the dice

[reply]
Re^2: Open source code and copyright
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Nov 17, 2019 at 09:05 UTC

    I am not aware of any licence which will allow someone to claim copyright for something which they haven't written

    Transfers of Copyright are possible in the US. It's not something one normally finds in a software license, though.

    Update: Looks like a software license would be insufficient to transfer a Copyright in the US because a signature is required.

[reply]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom