On Tue, Oct 15, 2002 at 11:15:08PM -0500, Curtis L. Olson wrote: > Question: for a particular source file, if a person contributed a > minor patch or tweak to compile on a new platform, does that person > now have a "full" say in the future of that source, or are they giving > their changes to the author of that file to be placed under the > license terms chosen by the primary author.
Exactly the way I want to think of it. The law, though, seems to have its own bizarre sense of logic. I belive that contributions are seen as being individual items(*), like pieces of lego. You only have the copyright on your 'pieces of lego'. Thus, if the primary author of some code wants to release future versions under a different license and a contributor disagrees, then the primary author would need to back out the contributed code. Obviously, as code evolves it becomes less clear who contributed what. (*)This is what I have surmised from previous discussions on copyright. I have never seen this explicitly stated. I don't like this way of looking at things but we have to deal with the legal system we have been given. > My sense is that if it is only minor changes that were contributed by > others, the primary author should be able to maintain complete > "ownership" over the copyright and license terms of that code. It is precisely because this is false that the FSF will not accept code for software they own the copyright unless you sign a document stating you own the copyright on code that you submit and assign the copyright to the FSF. > If someone else (in addition to the main author of a particular chunk > of code) contributed new code, or a major rewrite, or something else > significant, then we start getting into gray areas. It seems like the > primary author of that code probably still could have final say, but > basic courtesy might dictate that the major contributors at least be > consulted ... (?) I wish common courtesy played a part in such matters. When it comes to the law you can't trust people to be polite. Unfortunately, the legal system is inherently combatative(**). SUMMARY If the developers decide to change the license it should be doable. Some person or group will need to track down as many contributors as possible and try to get them to agree to the switch. That is where the real work is. My opinion is that the change won't bring enough benefits to warrant the expenditure of energy. (**) Off topic: the family of a co-worker of my wife completely devastated a few million dollar estate (on lawyers) because one group didn't agree with the terms of the will and contested it. This is not a rare occurence. -- James (Jay) Treacy [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
