On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 5:21 PM, Matthias Maier <tam...@gentoo.org> wrote: > And I see absolutely no harm in explicitly annotating the actual > copyright in gentoo ebuilds.
It seems like a simple and practical enough way to go. However, one of the arguments going for assigning copyright to the Gentoo foundation at the time we discussed it is that it offers some level of legal protection to the developer or external contributor. I have first hand experience of how abusive lawyers can sue you for totally invalid IP-related reasons and ruin your life. I've been fighting exactly that for almost 10 years now. So I certainly appreciate the comfort that assigning copyright of my Gentoo work to the foundation provides me. Having grown up in Europe I can see why people would think this could never happen to them, but living in the US has taught me differently. That said, we could always make it possible for the developer to voluntarily assign copyright to the foundation if (s)he so desires. And I would certainly do that for myself. Calchan.
