On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 10:47:57AM +1000, Trent W. Buck wrote:
Chris Samuel wrote:
It also highlights the potential dangers around working on software projects that require copyright assignment, in that unless you trust the people you are giving control of your code to never be acquired by others you are at risk of having it relicensed without your approval (as it becomes their code, not yours).
The counterargument is that if you don't do copyright assignment, and five years into a project you suddenly discover that an OpenSSL exception is a really good idea, you are completely fucked, because maybe one in twenty of your contributors have dropped off the grid in the meantime.
Also, when you assign copyrights to the FSF (e.g. for Emacs contributions), one of the things you get back is what looks like a legal promise to "keep on being free forever". IANAL so I don't know if that holds any weight, but it seems like a reasonable response to your issue.
IANAL either but it would seem to be a valid contract/agreement because both parties are getting something valuable out of the deal. FSF is getting the code and the contributor gets ongoing maintainence/inclusion of the code and the promise that it will always be free. that passes one of the most important hurdles for whether a contract is valid or not. i'd trust FSF with a copyright assignment. can't think of many (any?) others that I would. even if there was an intention to live up to the deal, anything can happen to "assets" like code if a company or organisation goes bankrupt or gets bought out. or if the programmer you've assigned your copyright to has changes in their ethics, dedication to free software ideals, or simply their financial situation changes for the worse.
The other downside of copyright assignment is that it's tedious. :-)
yes. craig -- craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au> BOFH excuse #72: Satan did it