On Mon, Oct 17, 2005 at 04:34:50PM +0200, Allison Randal wrote: > On Oct 17, 2005, at 12:26, Joshua Hoblitt wrote: > > >Which is what I've been doing > >but It's my understanding that copyright can only be transfered by a > >written argument. > > Yes, and in fact we won't be doing copyright *transfers* at all. When > you sign the contributor agreement, you'll be signing a copyright > *license*, which still leaves you with the right to use the code > elsewhere. TPF holds the "compilation copyright", that is the > copyright on the distributed collection of code. The individual files > say "Copyright The Perl Foundation" to reflect that fact. Individual > copyrights on included pieces of code are irrelevant from perspective > of the distribution (except that the contributors agree to give TPF > the license to distribute them).
Sounds reasonable and well thought out. > >This next statement isn't intending to stir up a > >flame-war but does TPF holding the copyrights really matter? AFAIK - > >The only value in having a single party holding _all_ the > >copyrights is > >to be able to change the licensing. > > The advantage is down-stream, for the people and companies that use > Perl/Parrot. If there isn't a single source of ownership on the > distribution, then legally users need to negotiate with every single > individual contributor to Perl/Parrot to ensure that they have the > right to use it. No-one will do that. If that was true nobody would be using the Linux kernel. How do you explain that? That only examples I can think of where 'users' negotiate anything with an open source project is to be granted a license exception and I'd imagine that the terms of the "contributor agreement" would forbid that. Is that the case? > So, with Perl 5, Larry is the compilation owner. The problem with > that is it makes Larry personally liable for any action brought > against Perl (not that that would ever happen, we hope), and a > successful suit could take his house, his car, his savings, etc. (not > that that would ever happen, we hope). With Perl 6/Parrot we decided > putting the burden of liability on the foundation is a better way to > do it. That way the worst that can happen in a legal action is that > someone can take the (limited) resources of TPF (not that that will > ever happen, we hope). Has any FOSS developer ever been found liable (or even sued)? Not that I have any objections to this plan but it might be worth considering that it's much easier to sue a single entity then it is to file a tort against a few tens or hundreds of contributors. Cheers, -J --
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