4 ms·

> The copyright assignment papers you write aren't as unilateral as you might think. It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF

by adekok 9y ago

> The copyright assignment papers you write aren't as unilateral as you might think. It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF sees fit. That's what copyright assignment means. So if you want to take your code and contribute it to a BSD licensed project? Nope. FSF won't allow that. Or use it in a commercial product? Nope. FSF won't allow that. You can use it in a GPL product, so long as you keep the FSF copyright. > A good weapon can be effective as self-defense merely as a deterrent. Sure. And what about Samba? Nothing prevents the Samba team from joining together collectively and suing someone for violating their license. The fact that other people have contributed small pieces to the code doesn't matter. A GPL license violation is still a violation of the code they own. e.g my own project: FreeRADIUS. At this point, I've written at least half of the code. If there's a licence violation, I don't need anyone else's permission (or copyright assignment) to go after the violators. So what, exactly benefit do I gain by submitting code to the FSF, and assigning copyright?

mikegerwitz 9y ago
> It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF sees fit. That's what copyright assignment means. The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions. > So what, exactly benefit do I gain by submitting code to the FSF, and assigning copyright? Because they'll enforce the GPL on your behalf. I assigned copyright for my GNU project to the FSF for that reason: I have no resources for enforcement. Nor do most people. > e.g my own project: FreeRADIUS. At this point, I've written at least half of the code. If there's a licence violation, I don't need anyone else's permission (or copyright assignment) to go after the violators. If there's a violation with _your code_. If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, you have no standing. And _this_ is why the FSF wants full copyright over Emacs.
- adekok 9y ago
  > If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, Then it's not my code, and I don't have rights on it, do I?
  - jhanschoo 9y ago
    I hope parent commentor clarifies this: do you still get to claim a fork of your contributed code as copyrighted to yourself? The standing problem goes both ways; if you distributed your fork but you had licensed it from the FSF, won't you lack standing from unauthorized use?
    - BeetleB 9y ago
      >do you still get to claim a fork of your contributed code as copyrighted to yourself? I believe so - as long as you license it with the GPL.
    - adekok 9y ago
      Yes, you lack standing. The FSF owns copyright.
      - jhanschoo 9y ago
        Is it legally possible to share copyright?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikegerwitz 9y ago
      > I hope parent commentor clarifies this I can't edit my comment; sorry. I meant "your project's code".
  - _jal 9y ago
    So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code? If only there were a mechanism for reaching that other code, so you could defend it... Oh, wait. Perhaps if those contributors assigned their copyright to you under a very permissive contract...
    - adekok 9y ago
      I don't understand the confusion here. It's not rocket science. > So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code? There's just no way you can conclude that from my comments. I explicitely said I could enforce copyright on my code, even if it's only half of the project. Again, the comment I was replying to said this: > If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, Does no one see the logical contradiction in that statement? YOUR code that YOU DON'T OWN. Uh... then it's not MY CODE, is it? Is that really that hard to figure out? I'll explain using simple examples, as people apparently aren't getting it. * If a third-party contributor to my project re-uses his own code elsewhere, I don't care. It's his code. * If someone violates copyright on a third-party contributors code, again, I don't really care. He's responsible for enforcing copyright on his code. I'm not. * And if he's contributing code to my project, I'm pretty sure that code is integrated into my project, and is largely useless outside of it. So the odds of a violation of just his code are pretty small. * If someone infringes on the project as a whole, then I own copyright to the majority, and I can enforce my copyright, independent of anyone else. * [edit] And if I submit code to the FSF and assign copyright to them, then it's their responsibility to enforce copyright... because they own the copyright. And yes, I have no standing. Is that clear? Can people please stop down-voting me for pointing out logical inconsistencies?
- adekok 9y ago
  > The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions. And can I enforce copyright for those exceptions? Clearly not, because the FSF owns the copyright.
  - mikegerwitz 9y ago
    No, the FSF would have to.
jordigh 9y ago
> Nothing prevents the Samba team from joining together collectively and suing someone for violating their license. It's a lot more work and can be more tricky when there are many different copyright holders. For example, the GPL case against VMWare has hinged on proving that Christoph Hellwig in fact owns the copyright to the lines in ESXi that ended up in VMWare's codebase. He tried to provide git blame output, as I recall, but the court didn't consider this to be sufficient. The case got thrown out, although Hellwig has said he will appeal. If Linux had a single copyright holder, there would be no need for git blame output and Linux could mount a more effective defense.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
tarsius 9y ago
> use it in a commercial product? Nope. FSF won't allow that. The FSF explicitly allows that. > The assignment contract we normally use has a clause that permits you to use your code in proprietary programs [...] Although we believe that proprietary software is wrong, we include this clause because it would serve no purpose to ask you to promise not to do it. You're giving us a gift in the first place. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyright/conditions.text http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyrig...
- adekok 9y ago
  And... can you enforce copyright on such a program? No, because the FSF owns the copyright. They have to do it. Or maybe the program has mixed copyright (you and the FSF), in which case the same problem (and solution) applies for mixed-copyright software. So how exactly, does assigning copyright to the FSF make anything better for anyone? It helps the FSF, sure. But everyone else (including the author) is negatively impacted by it. In contrast, if copyright remains with the author, then the only thing the FSF would lose is the ability to sue for infringement of the code you contributed. They could still sue for infringement of the code that they own.
  - mikegerwitz 9y ago
    > So how exactly, does assigning copyright to the FSF make anything better for anyone? It helps the FSF, sure. But everyone else (including the author) is negatively impacted by it. The author assigning the copyright benefits from GPL enforcement---enforcement they likely would not have the resources to do themselves. The code is still free software; the author can continue to use it in other free software projects. Do you have a specific situation in mind where the author might want to still have copyright (aside from a matter of principle) so we can focus on that for discussion?
    - adekok 9y ago
      My use-case is that I want to use the code I write as I see fit, using all of the rights I have available to me. If I assign copyright to the FSF, I lose many of those rights. So no, it's not about a specific situation. It's about the principle of the thing. i.e. if the FSF can be founded on the principle of freedom, why can't I claim to believe in the principle of freedom too? And why do I have to give up my rights under the law, in order to give the FSF more freedom for themselves? > The author assigning the copyright benefits from GPL enforcement---enforcement they likely would not have the resources to do themselves. The logical conclusion of that statement is that copyright doesn't really matter, whether the license is GPL or not. Violators can ignore the copyright, secure in the confidence that the majority of people won't have the resources to sue. So why don't we assign copyright for all open source projects to the FSF? After all, if the software is free, it doesn't really matter who the copyright holder is, right? And having someone who can enforce is is good, right? Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate here. There are unstated assumptions in the FSF's position, and in peoples support of it. I'd like to clarify what those assumptions are, and why they're true (or not).

by adekok 9y ago

mikegerwitz 9y ago

> It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF sees fit. That's what copyright assignment means. The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions. > So what, exactly benefit do I gain by submitting code to the FSF, and assigning copyright? Because they'll enforce the GPL on your behalf. I assigned copyright for my GNU project to the FSF for that reason: I have no resources for enforcement. Nor do most people. > e.g my own project: FreeRADIUS. At this point, I've written at least half of the code. If there's a licence violation, I don't need anyone else's permission (or copyright assignment) to go after the violators. If there's a violation with _your code_. If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, you have no standing. And _this_ is why the FSF wants full copyright over Emacs.

adekok 9y ago
> If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, Then it's not my code, and I don't have rights on it, do I?
- jhanschoo 9y ago
  I hope parent commentor clarifies this: do you still get to claim a fork of your contributed code as copyrighted to yourself? The standing problem goes both ways; if you distributed your fork but you had licensed it from the FSF, won't you lack standing from unauthorized use?
  - BeetleB 9y ago
    >do you still get to claim a fork of your contributed code as copyrighted to yourself? I believe so - as long as you license it with the GPL.
  - adekok 9y ago
    Yes, you lack standing. The FSF owns copyright.
    - jhanschoo 9y ago
      Is it legally possible to share copyright?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikegerwitz 9y ago
    > I hope parent commentor clarifies this I can't edit my comment; sorry. I meant "your project's code".
- _jal 9y ago
  So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code? If only there were a mechanism for reaching that other code, so you could defend it... Oh, wait. Perhaps if those contributors assigned their copyright to you under a very permissive contract...
  - adekok 9y ago
    I don't understand the confusion here. It's not rocket science. > So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code? There's just no way you can conclude that from my comments. I explicitely said I could enforce copyright on my code, even if it's only half of the project. Again, the comment I was replying to said this: > If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, Does no one see the logical contradiction in that statement? YOUR code that YOU DON'T OWN. Uh... then it's not MY CODE, is it? Is that really that hard to figure out? I'll explain using simple examples, as people apparently aren't getting it. * If a third-party contributor to my project re-uses his own code elsewhere, I don't care. It's his code. * If someone violates copyright on a third-party contributors code, again, I don't really care. He's responsible for enforcing copyright on his code. I'm not. * And if he's contributing code to my project, I'm pretty sure that code is integrated into my project, and is largely useless outside of it. So the odds of a violation of just his code are pretty small. * If someone infringes on the project as a whole, then I own copyright to the majority, and I can enforce my copyright, independent of anyone else. * [edit] And if I submit code to the FSF and assign copyright to them, then it's their responsibility to enforce copyright... because they own the copyright. And yes, I have no standing. Is that clear? Can people please stop down-voting me for pointing out logical inconsistencies?
adekok 9y ago
> The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions. And can I enforce copyright for those exceptions? Clearly not, because the FSF owns the copyright.
- mikegerwitz 9y ago
  No, the FSF would have to.

jordigh 9y ago

> Nothing prevents the Samba team from joining together collectively and suing someone for violating their license. It's a lot more work and can be more tricky when there are many different copyright holders. For example, the GPL case against VMWare has hinged on proving that Christoph Hellwig in fact owns the copyright to the lines in ESXi that ended up in VMWare's codebase. He tried to provide git blame output, as I recall, but the court didn't consider this to be sufficient. The case got thrown out, although Hellwig has said he will appeal. If Linux had a single copyright holder, there would be no need for git blame output and Linux could mount a more effective defense.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

tarsius 9y ago

> use it in a commercial product? Nope. FSF won't allow that. The FSF explicitly allows that. > The assignment contract we normally use has a clause that permits you to use your code in proprietary programs [...] Although we believe that proprietary software is wrong, we include this clause because it would serve no purpose to ask you to promise not to do it. You're giving us a gift in the first place. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyright/conditions.text http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/tree/doc/Copyrig...

adekok 9y ago
And... can you enforce copyright on such a program? No, because the FSF owns the copyright. They have to do it. Or maybe the program has mixed copyright (you and the FSF), in which case the same problem (and solution) applies for mixed-copyright software. So how exactly, does assigning copyright to the FSF make anything better for anyone? It helps the FSF, sure. But everyone else (including the author) is negatively impacted by it. In contrast, if copyright remains with the author, then the only thing the FSF would lose is the ability to sue for infringement of the code you contributed. They could still sue for infringement of the code that they own.
- mikegerwitz 9y ago
  > So how exactly, does assigning copyright to the FSF make anything better for anyone? It helps the FSF, sure. But everyone else (including the author) is negatively impacted by it. The author assigning the copyright benefits from GPL enforcement---enforcement they likely would not have the resources to do themselves. The code is still free software; the author can continue to use it in other free software projects. Do you have a specific situation in mind where the author might want to still have copyright (aside from a matter of principle) so we can focus on that for discussion?
  - adekok 9y ago
    My use-case is that I want to use the code I write as I see fit, using all of the rights I have available to me. If I assign copyright to the FSF, I lose many of those rights. So no, it's not about a specific situation. It's about the principle of the thing. i.e. if the FSF can be founded on the principle of freedom, why can't I claim to believe in the principle of freedom too? And why do I have to give up my rights under the law, in order to give the FSF more freedom for themselves? > The author assigning the copyright benefits from GPL enforcement---enforcement they likely would not have the resources to do themselves. The logical conclusion of that statement is that copyright doesn't really matter, whether the license is GPL or not. Violators can ignore the copyright, secure in the confidence that the majority of people won't have the resources to sue. So why don't we assign copyright for all open source projects to the FSF? After all, if the software is free, it doesn't really matter who the copyright holder is, right? And having someone who can enforce is is good, right? Yes, I'm playing devil's advocate here. There are unstated assumptions in the FSF's position, and in peoples support of it. I'd like to clarify what those assumptions are, and why they're true (or not).