On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 22:14 +0900, Ryan McDougall wrote: > > > > That Novell can do non-free things with your code, concerns many (of > > course). When the GPL is chosen as a licence for a project, the author > > or contributors want the code to be free, under all circumstances, which > > would not be the case. And as far as I can see, Novell is free to > > discontinue development on f.i. the free Evolution at any time, and > > continue to make this software under a proprietary licence. It depends > > how ideological you are - do you want to worry about this, or not? > > Are you suggesting that Novell is obligated to continue developing Evo > because its GPL? No, I am just saying that contributors have the right to worry about the opposite happening, which I completely understand. They can stop developing the GPL Evo, and do whatever with the code. (Evo is _just_ an example, no need to pull in details if you think about doing so :)) > > My solution: assign copyright to Foundation, Foundation assigns to > Novell. One set of paperwork. Foundation can protect copyrights its > still owns. Discuss. Yes. Sure. The least paperwork possible, one paper only. Maybe at membership approval time? "Membership in the Foundation requires blah blah because foo, and this makes your software either go this way or that way, depending on what you contribute to." Something like that. Is it possible? I dunno. Murray (to limit number of emails): I do believe it is possible to assign copyright under certain clauses, and that failure to comply with the clauses (the agreement), would render the copyright unusable. Like, for instance, something as "This code must be distributed under the GPL exclusively, or our right to copy your code will be lost." I do believe, if the Foundation is to hold copyright, that some guidelines and obligations must be set. Not to protect anyone, but to limit the worry of code getting "lost". Gah, enough of this already. I want breakfast. > > > > > Best wishes, > > Christoffer > > Cheers, > Ryan > Christoffer > > _______________________________________________ > desktop-devel-list mailing list > desktop-devel-list gnome org > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part