Steven Schveighoffer via dmd-internals, el 24 de June a las 11:10 me escribiste:
> 
> On Jun 24, 2014, at 2:33 AM, Walter Bright <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > On 6/23/2014 9:00 PM, Steven Schveighoffer via dmd-internals wrote:
> >> 
> >> A statement saying that any contributors must agree that they give 
> >> permission for Digital Mars to change the license of their code to any 
> >> future version of boost license would be sufficient and reasonable, IMO. 
> >> Remember that if any issues ever arise with boost license, the boost 
> >> project is sure to fix them, and then we can adopt that new license.
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > LLVM doesn't require copyright assignment, but they admit on their site 
> > that they are aware that implies the LLVM license can never change. GCC 
> > requires copyright assignment for larger contributions.
> 
> I think as Luca says, it's to have standing to sue in court, not to be able 
> to relicense. GCC's projects ALWAYS give the user the option of using any 
> future version of GPL, so they have a similar stipulation to what I stated.
> 
> > 
> > If the copyright holder agrees to such a clause, what rights do they retain 
> > as copyright holder? Such open-ended clauses may also even be invalid - 
> > I've never heard of one. Going with copyright assignment is simple and 
> > direct. I don't care to try and break new legal ground here. I don't care 
> > to risk the hard work of every contributor to D by trying a novel legal 
> > theory.
> 
> This isn't too complicated, it's the same rights they have that aren't 
> granted by the license. Basically, they are licensing under boost and any 
> future version of boost. The GPL is the example I'm thinking of, it's very 
> pervasive.
> 
> When I license code under a copyright, I retain the ownership rights. This 
> means I can relicense as I please, I can write derivative works without 
> permission from anyone else, I can redistribute however I want. But the 
> license I grant to you dictates what you can do. All I am doing is granting 
> you a perpetual right to relicense under a future version of boost. I don't 
> think this is new legal ground.

I think boost + clause saying you can optionally use it with any future
boost license version à la GPL should be enough for any concerns about
relicensing. It works for GPL, and they have lawyers behind that
decision and there are numerous projects using that. I think requiring
copyright assignment could do more harm than good. Heck! DMDFE code
couldn't be contributed for a long time to the GCC, even when it was
GPL, because they required a copyright assignment!

If the copyright assignment requirement were well grounded, then maybe
it would be justified, but to require it just based on a potential
unknown and extremely unlikely fear seems pointless.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cuanta plata que aquí circula y yo que ando con gula...
        -- Sidharta Kiwi
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