Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
begin Greg Herlein quotation: I feel uncomfortable putting them up on line after he clearly took steps to control the distribution of them. Oh, I was unaware of the latter. There are other organisations that use copyright-assignment protocols of some sorts -- for example, Tripwire, Inc. for its GPLed codebase. I'm sure I'll find one or two that seem sound, if I look around. -- Cheers, There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a Rick Moen little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider [EMAIL PROTECTED] price only are this man's lawful prey. - J. Ruskin (attr.)
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
Rick, You should just ask Brian if you can post them. Write him at [EMAIL PROTECTED] I'll be happy to send you the templates, but I think it's the right thing to do(tm) to ask the FSF before you put them on the web. Greg On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Rick Moen wrote: begin Greg Herlein quotation: I feel uncomfortable putting them up on line after he clearly took steps to control the distribution of them. Oh, I was unaware of the latter. There are other organisations that use copyright-assignment protocols of some sorts -- for example, Tripwire, Inc. for its GPLed codebase. I'm sure I'll find one or two that seem sound, if I look around. -- Cheers, There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a Rick Moen little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider [EMAIL PROTECTED] price only are this man's lawful prey. - J. Ruskin (attr.)
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
On Thursday 21 June 2001 12:58 am, Henningsen wrote: Currently that is the rule no doubt, but I think we could get open source code written faster and probably better if people could actually expect getting paid for their work. In exchange for giving up his/her copyrights, a contributor to my code who has written 10% of the code (counted by lines of code, assuming that every contributing author writes entire file modules, and small patches are disregarded) would get paid something like 5% of any profits from commercial licenses. If you are counting strictly by code size, won't that tend to produce bloated code? If I was being paid according to LOCs I'd written, I could write some shitty bloated rubbish. -- ## Philip Hunt ## ## [EMAIL PROTECTED] ##
Real-World Copyright Assignment
I will only integrate contributor's code into my codebase if they hand over copyright to alifegames.com (in exchange for a fair share of any profits that may derive from commercial licenses to the code in the future), so I will be able to release my own core code at any time under any license I wish. snip At Sun, we license OpenOffice.org code under both the LGPL and SISSL. Since only the copyright holder can change licensing terms for a body It seems that others think like the FSF: getting code contributors to assign copyrights to contributed code is a good thing. However, I'm very interested in the actual real-world implementation of this. What kind of language do you use in the copyright assignement agreement? Is there a template that cn be copied by others? Do you require hard copy signed and snail-mailed to consider it legal? Do you apply this to all contributions? Obviously a major feature implmentation would need it, but what about a three line patch? Where is the cutoff from a practical consideration? As to contributing back profits from the effort to the original contributors, how do you calculate the share? How can you track that? I'm considering all these issues for a release of some code I have, and it's thorny with problems. I'd be very interested in a more rigourous discussion of this - on or off the list. I'm also interested in what constitutes distribution - if someone takes GPL code and embeds it into a network appliance and sells that product as a black box and the user never even knows what happens under the hood, is that considered distribution? How can a develper enforce it if they want to license the code so that if you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is commercial? Greg (my apologies if this stuff has been covered recently - I just found this list and I cannot find any archives of it to review).
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
Greg Herlein wrote: However, I'm very interested in the actual real-world implementation of this. What kind of language do you use in the copyright assignement agreement? Is there a template that cn be copied by others? Do you require hard copy signed and snail-mailed to consider it legal? Do you apply this to all contributions? Obviously a major feature implmentation would need it, but what about a three line patch? Where is the cutoff from a practical consideration? One project I was involved with was considering working some sort of one-time click to agree to the provisions of the license into the CVS or patch manager. That would cover assignment of copyright as well as indemnification of the developers. Since things like CVS are individual account-driven, the attorneys felt that an one-time (and for all future submissions) electronic agreement would suffice, since you could have the record of the individual developer's agreement. Is anyone familiar with something like this actually being put into practice? As to contributing back profits from the effort to the original contributors, how do you calculate the share? How can you track that? Ugh, I don't think you can. Fool's errand, IMHO. If you submit code to a project, you don't do it in expectation of future profits directly from the code. Likely unworkable and unenforcable. I'm also interested in what constitutes distribution - if someone takes GPL code and embeds it into a network appliance and sells that product as a black box and the user never even knows what happens under the hood, is that considered distribution? How can a develper enforce it if they want to license the code so that if you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is commercial? Anyone from TiVo on this list? That's their situation with the Linux kernel exactly. See http://www.tivo.com/linux/ Regards, Ned
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
One project I was involved with was considering working some sort of one-time click to agree to the provisions of the license into the CVS or patch manager. I thought these were considered unenforcable. Can you really give up rights from a click? I know that contracts can legally give up rights (even some promised uner the Constitution) but can a click be a binding contractual agreement? I'd be hesitant about that. Ugh, I don't think you can. Fool's errand, IMHO. If you submit code to a project, you don't do it in expectation of future profits directly from the code. Likely unworkable and unenforcable. Which brings the next thorny issue: suppose a contributor does not want to assign his/her rights to you (perhaps thinking what do I get out of this, or perhaps opposing it on principle). What then? What if that person then creates his/her own local version that does include his.her patches, effectively forking the code? Anyone from TiVo on this list? That's their situation with the Linux kernel exactly. See http://www.tivo.com/linux/ Yes, Tivo released code. Wasn't there a hubub about it though? Greg
RE: Real-World Copyright Assignment
you are free, my code is free; if you are commercial, my code is commercial? [DJW:] I believe that this would violate the definition of open source used on this mailing list, but the Kermit licence might be an example of such a (non-open source) licence. OK, maybe I need some education on the current definitions in vogue. However, from my perspective, if a body of code is licensed in such a way that it can be linked to other open source code freely provided that all that code is also released, then that's still open source. Requiring altrernative licensing arrangements if my code is to be linked to code that is not open - that does not seem like a violation of open source at all to me. The goal, as I have defined it for my project, is that if you want to use my libraries in your project and your project is open source code - ie, the code is available for inspection and derivation, and no commercial fees are charged for derivative works - then I want my code to be free for your use - ie, the code is available for inspection and derivation, and no commercial fees are charged for derivative works. However, if you want to keep your code closed - for whatever reason - or charge for the right to derive from your code, then you must make alternative (commercial) arrangments with me. Surely I cannot be the only person wanting to thread this needle. My questions relate to the PRACTICAL way to go about doing this. It's all well and good to talk about it and have these goals, but how does one actually translate that to the real world? Greg
RE: Real-World Copyright Assignment
From: Greg Herlein [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] The goal, as I have defined it for my project, is that if you want to use my libraries in your project and your project is open source code - ie, the code is available for inspection and derivation, and no commercial fees are charged for derivative [DJW:] That's a subset of commercial use. Some people, e.g. the kermit people, consider distribution for profit on a CD to be commercial use. They also consider any distribution were there is a commercial relationship to be commercial, but both are allowed for open source. Some people consider internal use by for profit organisations to be commercial, but this sort of use is definitely permitted for open source. Some open source licences permit conversion to binary only, non-redistributable, form, but others don't. -- --- DISCLAIMER - Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of BTS.
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
begin Greg Herlein quotation: Yes, this is what I am leaning towards. From a practical perspective, what is required to legally get the contributors to assign copyright to me? How are other people/orgs doing this, and are those methods going to hold up legally? The problem (and the mechanics of dealing with copyright assignment) are addressed, in some detail, in FSF's Information for Maintainers of GNU Software, http://www.fsf.org/prep/maintain_toc.html . 'Hope that helps! -- Cheers, I used to be on the border of insanity. However, due Rick Moen to pressing political concerns, I recently had to invade. [EMAIL PROTECTED]-- Kurt Montandon, in r.a.sf.w.r-j
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
The problem (and the mechanics of dealing with copyright assignment) are addressed, in some detail, in FSF's Information for Maintainers of GNU Software, http://www.fsf.org/prep/maintain_toc.html . 'Hope that helps! This is indeed quite useful. Sort of becoming a maintainer for a GNU project, is there any way to get copies of the assignment templates for review? What templates are other people using? Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
Brian Youmans, the FSF clerk handling assignements, was kind enough to send me all the templates. Other kind folks on the list did as well. Thanks to all of them. Brian indicated that the FSF did not copyright these templates so we are free to derive from them. With Rick's link to the FSF pages (http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain.html) and these templates, I now see a path towards how to do this in the real world. I'm still interested in the distribution aspects - a la Tivo and such. But thanks a bunch to all of you who helped me this morning. Greg
Re: Real-World Copyright Assignment
begin Greg Herlein quotation: Brian indicated that the FSF did not copyright these templates so we are free to derive from them. Any chance I can get an electronic copy, so I can put them up for public access? I recall, by the way, that Tripwire, Inc. is one of the other organisations requiring copyright assignment for contributed code (for its GPLed codebase). But the development site seems to have no details: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tripwire/ (Niggle: If FSF's templates have sufficient substance to be a creative work, then copyright on them exists inherently by operation of law, whether FSF claims it exists or not.) -- Cheers, kill -9 them all. Rick Moen Let init sort it out. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
