Copyright assignments to one organization put that organization in a strong position to enforce the GPL in court, because it can claim copyright over the whole work. The FSF's lawyers advised us to get copyright assignments for contributions to our packages saying it would reduce uncertainty in enforcing the GPL.
GNOME does not have to do this, but it might be a good idea for the GNOME Foundation to ask for copyright assignments for certain components. Maybe there has been little GPL violation for GNOME, but that might change if mobile devices start using it. The FSF copyright assignments put binding requirements of good conduct on the FSF. For instance, we must provide source code and allow redistribution. We designed these requirements to give contributorsd a basis to trust us in addition to knowing we act on principle. The GNOME Foundation could do likewise. When companies ask for copyright assignments, they may be seeking to use your code in proprietary software. Here's an article that suggests what to look for when thinking about that question. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/assigning-copyright. -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/ _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list foundation-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
