Re: Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup



On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 13:47 -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 06, 2004 at 09:14:19PM +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> > On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 13:01 -0700, Sriram Ramkrishna wrote:
> > > So, let me get this straight.  You're position is that by assigning 
> > > copyright to a single entity that entity; be it whomever, can relicense
> > > to the code as propriety or something non-GPL correct?
> > 
> > No. They can do that because you agree to let them do that by signing
> > that contract.
> 
> Sure.  But you can negiotate that youre code can only go into the
> GPL'd version or it can't be made proprietary.  You have that power
> becuase it's you're code.  If entity decides they don't want it they are
> free to re-write it and take yours out.

No. You can't do that. It's no longer your code. You waived that right
by signing the copyright assignment.

> But the agreement between developer and entity says 'I agree that my code
> can be licensed GPL'd and proprietary but it cannot just be proprietary'.
> Wuld that satisify you?  Especially if the agreement is enforceable by
> law?

Because that's not the agreement. The agreement would be satisfied with
one release in Free Software and all others as proprietary.

> > > A legal agreement is binding.  An entity is obligated by law to follow
> > > through.
> > Yes.
> > > I'm not seeing where the license is being circumvented.
> > 
> > Simple. You can't circunvent it if you don't own all the copyrights.
> > So you collect them all in order to have the right to do it.
> > 
> > And in One Assignment, bind them.
> 
> You seem to consider conslidation into one entity as a bad thing.

No. Just a blind one.

> The FSF wants to do the same thing here.

No. The FSF promises to maintain the freedom. Novell openly declares it
wants to be able to make proprietary code out of Free Software effort (a
very recent post of Miguel de Icaza explicitly says this about Mono).

>   They would wish us to
> assign copyright to the FSF.  Are you willing to come to the 
> <some country> to defend your code/copyright against all legal 
> attacks?  Conslidation helps a project be able to defend their code
> base against attacks.

I have no problem if it is done in an honest way. This isn't honest.
Many are fooled by the carefull writing of this agreement, at least that
much is, by now, quite evident to me.

> You also believe that once it's out of your hands you're screwed.
> Thats not necessarily true.  What if the FSF were to come up with
> a boiler plate agreement that are looked over by it's lawyers would
> you use that agreement when assigning code over?

That's what the FSF does.

Rui

-- 
+ No matter how much you do, you never do enough -- unknown
+ Whatever you do will be insignificant,
| but it is very important that you do it -- Gandhi
+ So let's do it...?

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