LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Alan Kennington <akenning@dog.topology.org>
  To  : Mark Newton <newton@atdot.dotat.org>
  Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 01:48:13 +1030

Re: Werner Icking bicycle accident

On Wed, Feb 14, 2001 at 12:54:56AM +1030, Mark Newton wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 13, 2001 at 10:50:49PM +1030, Alan Kennington wrote:
> 
>  > it raises the issue of what happens to copyright etc. when an author dies.
> 
> The same thing that's happened since the idea of "copyright" was first
> created:  It's distributed along with the rest of the estate, either 
> under direct instructions from his will, or under the direction of whoever
> he appointed to dispose of his estate, or according to local law.

Mark,

I assume that because of the open source licences involved,
there will be no problem with people continuing his works
and using them, and that his heirs will have no right to stop
other people from using his works.

To this very day, I still do no really understand the
difference between a "modified work" and a "derived work".
Licences which require other people to send any modifications
back to the author for incorporation are not going to
work too well in this case.
Someone would have to take over his software and be responsible
for it, in practice.
Suppose Linux was eaten by a shark (or a rabid penguin).
If a non-technical person inherits his copyrights,
we could all be in big trouble.

Anyway, here's my translation of the article for the
people who know even less German than I do.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Puzzle about the dead man in Pleiser Wood cleared up.
----------------------------------------------------

Death of the 57-year-old in St. Augustin puzzled the Kripo
(Criminal Police) at first.
Cyclist collided with an animal and was fatally injured.

Sankt Augustin.
A dead cyclist posed a puzzle to the police on Friday morning.
The police found the 57 year old Sankt Augustin man on the street
called ``Viehtrift'' [cattle pasture] near Castle Birlinghoven.

The personal things of the dead man lay widely scattered.
Photo: Holger Arndt.

The tracks were at first unclear to the officials because the
dead man's personal things lay at a distance of more than 200
metres from where he was found.

According to the police, an analysis of the tracks permits the
conclusion that the cyclist fell heavily on the sloping road
through Pleiser Wood. Consquently, the wounded man would have
dragged himself a further 200 metres on to where he died. The
investigators found the hair of a pig or swine [literally ``a
bristle-animal''] on the asphalt. Apparently the man collided with
the animal while he was on the way home after working late at the
GMD. His wife had alerted the [Sankt] Augustin police at about
7:15 because her husband had not come home. Police searched the
man's route home and found him dead.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

By the way, on the morning of his death, he sent two e-mails to
the mutex mailing list at about 11:00. About 6 hours later,
he was dead. This certainly seems very scary to me.
I don't know why.

Cheers,
Alan Kennington.

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