22 ms·

GCC drops its copyright-assignment requirement

255 points by corbet 5y ago

invokestatic 5y ago
I'm somewhat surprised to hear that many GNU projects have copyright-assignment policies in place. That seems to go against what I used to think the FSF was all about. But after watching videos of Linus on GPL v3, it seems that the FSF is all about exerting control, despite having "Freedom" in their name.
- Macha 5y ago
  Given they use GPL-x-or-later licenses and are all the authority needed to designate something as GPL 4 or 3.1 or whatever, if they wanted to go evil to utilise their control they already could have. It's not like they're opposed on principal to new license versions to benefit specific projects either, e.g. GFDL 1.3 has the "Wikipedia can relicense to Creative Commons" exception
  - invokestatic 5y ago
    The key difference to me is the “or later” part. So even if the FSF releases an evil version 3.1 or whatever, everyone could just continue to use version 3 instead. Whereas if the FSF owns all of the intellectual property, they can relicense it in its entirety to strictly 3.1.
    - monocasa 5y ago
      I think you're on the right track, they just view protecting the FSF as something that needs to happen regardless, and it can therefore be relied on. Then if there's a horrible flaw with a previous GPL, they can at least force their projects to the new version.
    - ARandomerDude 5y ago
      I don't understand why your original comment was flagged. I went and watched one of the Q&A videos from Linus Torvalds you mentioned and it was very educational. Thanks for your comment, even though the HN comment cancellers hated it.
    - ignoranceprior 5y ago
      If the evil version 3.1 is more restrictive than previous versions, then you are right to say people could just ignore it. However, if evil version 3.1 is more permissive, for an extreme example say they changed it to a verbatim copy of WTFPL, then there would be nothing stopping people from creating a proprietary fork of the project, the very thing copyleft was designed to prevent.
      - squiggleblaz 5y ago
        Would they be in breach of contract if they did so, or would some other legal recourse exist? The licence explicitly says: "The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns." A non-copyleft licence would not be similar in spirit. I could certainly imagine some proprietary code loving coalition seeking to control the FSF after RMS's eventual demise, so that they could create a new, non-copyleft licence. GPL 3 is aware of such concern: it says, "If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program", apparently trying to provide an alternative path to allow Linus Torvalds to accept only the versions he wants to accept.
    - Macha 5y ago
      There's nothing stopping the next release of an application that has historically been GPL 2 or later being released as GPL 3.1 only, however? They can't go back and take back the existing licenses to existing versions (the whole non-revocable term of the license) so other users can still give you those versions under those licenses even if the FSF decided they didn't want to themselves.
      - squiggleblaz 5y ago
        The following is crafted deliberately as something of a worst case scenario; I don't think it is even remotely likely. So GCC is 3.1 or later. RMS dies and Google, Facebook etc get in control of the FSF: after all, they are major contributors and beneficiaries. While this is going down, fearing the badness around the corner, the GCC project continues work on GCC under 3.1 only (and attempts to stop it, unsuccessfully). The FSF releases 4.0 which is a long and wordy version of 3 clause BSD. Google now forks the latest version of GCC before the project relicensed it. There are two versions continuing: Google GCC under GPL4+ and GCC GCC under GPL3.1. The community doesn't entirely know which branch to contribute to and amidst the mire all the new features of C++30 get added to a proprietary fork of Clang. In general, free software gets regarded as dusty and old and most development happens on compilers people bought.
        pjmlp 5y ago
        No need for that. https://github.com/android/ndk/wiki/Changelog-r18 https://github.com/android/ndk/wiki/Changelog-r18 https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/
- msla 5y ago
  The FSF is about protecting freedom, which includes being able to sue people who infringe on that freedom. A slogan without enforcement is toothless, and businesses only respect teeth.
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
  To anyone wondering, pretty sure "Linus talking about GPLv3" here refers to Linus at Debconf in 2014 https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 (from there to 56:51 it's about open source licenses)
  - duxup 5y ago
    Thank you. That was helpful.
- globular-toast 5y ago
  There are libertarians and anarchists who think that freedom is having no laws at all. But what happens when a huge chemical company starts dumping waste on your lawn? Who do you call? They are free to do what they want, aren't they? Individual liberties can only go so far. If we want freedom as a society it is necessary to restrict individual freedom at the point that it begins to affect the freedoms and rights of others. In practice that means, unfortunately, governments, police and armies are necessary. Permissive licences are idealistic. Copyleft/FSF-style licences are pragmatic.
  - superjan 5y ago
    I think your point is that copyleft creates extra value because those extending it are incentivized to contribute their extensions. But in the case of gcc as compared to llvm, permissive licensing looks to be at least as successful. An issue with copyleft that you need to commit to providing the source beforehand. If you are allowed to choose afterwards, you don’t need to ask in advance, and it’s easier to make the case that upstreaming your patches is in the organization’s best interest. And yes I know copyleft only requires only providing code to your users, but in practice the organization assumes that means the distribution can’t be enforced.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    Libertarians still believe in property rights and a sufficient legal system that the answer to > But what happens when a huge chemical company starts dumping waste on your lawn? is "sue them to oblivion".
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      But when they start dumping it on the common meadow behind your property, or the street in front of it, you can't do shit because you don't own those... And libertarians only believe in a legal system sufficient to protect property rights and nothing else. They should call themselves selfitarians, because what they're all about isn't "liberty", but selfishness.
notRobot 5y ago
Can someone please tl;dr why this was a requirement in the first place? I trust the FSF and it seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure why.
- sigjuice 5y ago
  https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
  - jhonsrid 5y ago
    This seems to imply copyright assignment to the FSF is _required_ for GNU projects? I wonder what RMS's take is on a unilateral change like this in one of the highest profile GNU projects?
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  This may not be the FSF stance, but I can think of 3 reasons. The main one is it is easier to change the license if you want to. IANAL so I'll probably mess up these next two, which I believe are more theoretical than anything in regard to software. At least in the US. It is possible for a copyright holder to revoke a license. so there could be an important contribution living in the code base and then one day the author could revoke the license and they would have to remove the code, and somehow prove their replacement was not infringing. There is a concept of Joint Authorship. Where it could be possible for a contributor to claim joint copyright over the entire project, and then release it on their own under any license they want. I could be wrong, but I believe it has happened where book editors that didn't have an air tight contract, were able to claim joint copyright over a book they edited, and release their own versions with a different publisher.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "It is possible for a copyright holder to revoke a license. so there could be an important contribution living in the code base and then one day the author could revoke the license and they would have to remove the code, and somehow prove their replacement was not infringing." I don't believe that is true. A license is a contract; there are only two ways to revoke a contract: if the contract is illegal or if the contract provides terms to let you revoke it. If you publish software under the GPL, there is no way to revoke the license. You could stop supporting the contribution in the code base and release alternate versions under different licenses, but the versions in the code base under the GPL remain available under the original terms.
mikece 5y ago
Given three plus decades of FOSS experience, are the fears of permissive licenses like MIT and BSD (that companies will take, fork, and not give back in a meaningful way which will kill open source) considered to be well-founded? Could Linux not be as pervasive and important as it is today had it been released under a BSD license?
- ajross 5y ago
  I guess that depends on definitions of "pervasive and important" more than it does facts on the ground. To my eyes, the number of open source drivers (near zero) available for Apple hardware, developed to run on their BSD-licensed kernel, pretty much provides all the evidence I need. No, a BSD Linux would have long since disappeared behind the curtain of some tech giant or another, just like Mach did into NeXT/Apple.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Though binary blobs are a thing, albeit a somewhat controversial thing. Assuming a BSD-licensed Linux is a fairly small step away from assuming that Linux didn't exist given the existence of various BSD Unix flavors. And most people I know feel fairly strongly that, in the absence of Linux, BSD Unix would have come to the forefront.
    - Macha 5y ago
      But would it have come to the forefront in the form of FreeBSD, or in the form of macOS or a similar system?
      - ghaff 5y ago
        Service providers were already using the BSDs in the dot-com buildup when Linux wasn't quite as far along. For anyone interested, here's a debate between Bryan Cantrill and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols I recorded last year on the topic "If Linux didn't exist, would we have had to invent it?" https://grhpodcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/Cantrill_Nichols.mp3 https://grhpodcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/Cantrill_Nichols.mp3
woofie11 5y ago
I think the FSF is starting to realize that Stallman is not forever, and FSF ethics aren't forever. Having the FSF have exclusive rights to change license terms with "or newer" terms and to hold copyrights to projects is a bad idea as the founders of the FSF are getting older. I trust the FSF, but I have no idea who the FSF will be in another 20 years.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Actually everything GNU and Linux related. I am quite certain that when the generations that made this happen are gone, computer world will be back at business as usual like it was in the shareware days.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - anthk 5y ago
    Shareware days are dead. Also, there are diehard Libre GNU/Linux out there beside Stallman behind several projects.
    - enriquto 5y ago
      > Shareware days are dead. They aren't. Google's play store and Apple's app store are examples of thriving shareware platforms.
      - anthk 5y ago
        No, today's trends are the subscriptions. Far worse. Kinda like mainframes, but with a flat rate. Also, there is almost no shareware.
        enriquto 5y ago
        > there is almost no shareware. According to the definition [0] of shareware: Shareware is a type of proprietary software which is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost with usually limited functionality or incomplete documentation but which can be upgraded upon payment. This includes subscriptions and in-app purchases. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware
okprod 5y ago
I really hope GCC consulted with a lawyer before this
- okprod 5y ago
  This is a serious question. I know what they're doing/why, but GCC's structure and ability to handle legal situations isn't like the Linux Foundation.
CJefferson 5y ago
I wonder if this is largely a practical issue -- I've seen people waiting over a year for everything to get sorted out ( for example https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235288.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235288.html ), that's just not reasonable.
deng 5y ago
This is a good example of how to not steer a FOSS project. Seriously, what was the steering committee thinking? I mean, I tend to agree with this decision, but do they honestly believe that just announcing such a big change without any public discussion beforehand is going to fly?
- freeone3000 5y ago
  This doesn't change anything for anybody except the copyright holder (who, if you've signed a copyright assignment statement, is not you). They're allowing contributors to maintain copyright over code submitted to GNU projects, and if you want to assign copyright to the FSF, you still can. The COS (a form of CLA) still grants the FSF the right to redistribute the code under GPLv3, so it doesn't affect users, either. I don't really know what a public consultation would have done here.
  - deng 5y ago
    Just follow the thread in the gcc mailing list. There are loads of questions now which need to be answered, just to name a few: - Can the steering committee make that decision? - Can the code be still easily(!) re-licensed to a possible GPLv4? - How can code later be re-licensed to GPL with runtime library exception or to LGPL? - Who should be named as copyright holder? It might very well be that all these questions can be easily answered, but that should have happened before.
    - nullc 5y ago
      Because almost always the employer owns their employees work product, you're going to end up with large swaths of GCC code having various megacorps being the exclusive copyright holder; potentially creating even more opportunities for Oracle v. Google like litigation over compliance minutia regarding code that is supposed to be freely available.
- knz_ 5y ago
  Well, this is a problem that FSF created. They tried to unilaterally appoint RMS to the steering committee and were forced to renege when most of GCC's top contributors threatened to walk away from the project. If they didn't get rid of the copyright aggreement there would have just been a fork or those people would have gone to work on other projects.
natch 5y ago
Off topic but reminds me, I wonder if copyright assignment or trademark assignment (if it applies) would have helped freenode. In the sense of helping it stay as it was, a friendly place for users and project maintainers.
- colonwqbang 5y ago
  Freenode should have been incorporated as a nonprofit foundation or something like that, with a clear mission. As long as the domain name (the key asset) is just owned privately by some project member, you have no guarantees.
marcodiego 5y ago
This may help contributors, but makes difficult to change the license in the future. I guess this the main reason why FSF requires copyright assignment to them. Now that this is no longer needed, I really hope that the world will not need anything newer than GPLv3.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  This was addressed on the mailing list: changing to future versions of the GPL will still be possible, due to the "or any later version" wording. It's only changing to a non-GPL license that will now be impossible.
  - Kenji 5y ago
    Isn't the "or any later version" clause super dangerous? What if a party somehow takes over the FSF and publishes a GPLv4 which is completely permissive? This seems like a time bomb. Am I misunderstanding something?
    - lmm 5y ago
      It's a real risk. You have to weigh that up against the possibility of someone finding a loophole in the GPLv3 (similar to what TiVO did with GPLv2, where they granted you a copyright license but used code signing to stop you actually making changes to the code on your device) that's patched in GPLv4, and your GPLv3-only code is incompatible with the GPLv4 so anyone who wants to use it in GPLv4 projects has to rewrite their own replacement instead.
    - ognarb 5y ago
      You can define a proxy since the GPL3. This is what we are doing at KDE so if a GPL4 appear, to apply to most KDE project you will need a vote of the KDE e.V. membership on it. For example: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSES/LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.txt https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSE...
- segfaultbuserr 5y ago
snackematician 5y ago
I really hope other GNU projects, in particular Emacs, follow suit, though I doubt it will happen. In my experience it is a massive hassle to get the copyright disclaimer from my employers. I'm currently on hold from contributing to Emacs because my paperwork is working its way through the legal bureuacracy of my new employer. Also, I have former coworkers from previous companies who were enthusiastic about Emacs, but unwilling to go through the trouble of getting the paperwork to contribute. I think getting this paperwork through is probably more difficult in my industry, than in others -- I do R&D at a large pharmaceutical. Still, I think the copyright disclaimer is one of the biggest factors that is limiting the number and diversity of Emacs contributors. I also think it's unnecessary, as Linux does not have this requirement, and it has successfully enforced the GPL, for example on router manufacturers.
- knorker 5y ago
  GNU Radio did this recently. Now they just have a CLA, I think.
ExcavateGrandMa 5y ago
I which this let ppl pushing pseudo (anonymous) commits... that make the diff :Ð & then appreciate the reviewers... :Ð Oh my!
marcodiego 5y ago
The only GNU project I directly contributed code to was GNU nano. I was probably only willing to do so because it did not require anything like a CLA. But, if this didn't need any bureaucracy, I'd be glad to do so. I personally trust the FSF. Every new version of the GPL came after players tried to circumvent it so, having new updated versions of the GPL prevents players from abusing the right they have when new (legal) holes are discovered. AFAICS, the only institution I'd trust to assign my copyrights to is the FSF. They have proved time and time again to not sacrifice freedom and privacy in the name of profit or convenience.
- Blikkentrekker 5y ago
  I am currently sitting on quite a few library improvements in Guile, so many that I forgot most of them but they mostly have to do with XML parsing, that were never upstreamed. The reason for this is that the process for upstreaming it was significantly more involved that writing it, and also that they require my name and address for it and would intend to publish my name publicly. Wine also has the requirement for publishing names of all contributors, which the project claims is about “trust”. Even if I were to trust Wine with my name, which I more or less would, I do not trust everyone who sees my name in that public file with it.
  - pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
    > the process for upstreaming it was significantly more involved that writing it It's not very different from the way things work today, where many projects insist on doing everything through GitHub, and if you aren't on there, then it's a massive PITA. It truly is the Facebook of the programming world, down to how oblivious everyone inside the gates are about anything outside of it. ("What do you mean you can't RSVP because we're using Facebook to do that? Isn't everybody using Facebook?")
nonfamous 5y ago
This is a good thing for the health of the GNU ecosystem, and I hope other GNU projects adopt this practice. Related story: a couple of years ago, the current maintainer of an Emacs package reached out to me. Apparently the FSF wanted to make it part of the official Emacs distribution, and wanted me to assign my copyright to them. I was happy to do so, BUT: the code was written more than 20 years ago when I was at university, which (according to the FSF) meant I needed to get a copyright release from the university, in a country I no longer lived in and that I had not interacted with for literal decades. This seemed like far too much trouble at that point, so I gave up, and the package never became part of Emacs.
- brnt 5y ago
  Wouldnt the copyright have expired at that point?
  - rwmj 5y ago
    Copyright terms last effectively forever, and certainly a lot lot longer than 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term
  - johnzim 5y ago
    Copyright tends to run from the death of the author for a period (in the US is 70 years after death). As for where it's assigned to an institution, it'll still have a long time to run - decades!
  - rodgerd 5y ago
    Copyright is either the death of the author plus a period, or a length of time for a non-human entity such as a university or limited liability company.
  - NavinF 5y ago
    In a sane world it would have expired, but not here. cf. The Mickey Mouse Protection Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act...
btilly 5y ago
Nobody is discussing the reason for the copyright-assignment requirement. I only know about it because I was caught in the issue that it means to prevent nearly 20 years ago. The issue is that in many places (for example New York State), work done by a professional employee actually belongs to your employer. A developer can write code, contribute it where they want, and license it as they wish. But the code is actually owned by their employer. Which means that if there is a future problem, the employer can assert their copyright interest and people who thought that they had the right to use that code, suddenly don't. Because developers themselves are seldom aware of such rules, the FSF took the ultra-safe approach of requiring employers to sign off. That way they are absolutely sure that there will never be a problem. However other open source projects have found that, in practice, problems are rare. And when there is a problem, the employers usually will agree to the license.
- kencausey 5y ago
  If you can go into it, what was the resolution of the issue in which you were caught?
- daptaq 5y ago
  AFAIK (one of the) the main reason for the copyright requirements is so that the GNU project can update the license, when a new version of the GPL is released, fixing loopholes or other issues in older versions. I am weary of dropping the copyright assignment, because issues like Tivoization could always pop up without anyone anticipating it, and even have contributors actively resisting the updates to fix these issues. (Edit: What I also came to think of is that GCC recently positioned itself in opposition to the FSF because of the "Stallman-Controversy". Is this a kind of retaliation on their part?)
  - wahern 5y ago
    Copyright assignment is about enforceability, not updating the license. It's much easier to maintain copyright registrations, and to prosecute an infringement case, when you control all the copyrights. Anyhow, we don't have to guess why they want it: > Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, there are very substantial procedural advantages to registration of copyright. And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license. If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors. > In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
linuxhansl 5y ago
Copyright assignment is an interesting topic. With the copyright assigned the owner of said copyright can release the code under any license of their choosing. Some dual license open source projects do this, the organization requires the copyright assignment and hence they can release the code under an open source license and their own closed license. License changes here are perfectly OK (legally at least). Interesting cases are those without a copyright grant. Now you allow the group to only produce copies and releases in accordance to that specific license. License changes now are questionable. Can you relicense Apache 2.0 as AGPL? BSD as Apache 2.0? (Without owning the copyright, my guess in both cases is no.)

255 points by corbet 5y ago

I'm somewhat surprised to hear that many GNU projects have copyright-assignment policies in place. That seems to go against what I used to think the FSF was all about. But after watching videos of Linus on GPL v3, it seems that the FSF is all about exerting control, despite having "Freedom" in their name.

Macha 5y ago
Given they use GPL-x-or-later licenses and are all the authority needed to designate something as GPL 4 or 3.1 or whatever, if they wanted to go evil to utilise their control they already could have. It's not like they're opposed on principal to new license versions to benefit specific projects either, e.g. GFDL 1.3 has the "Wikipedia can relicense to Creative Commons" exception
- invokestatic 5y ago
  The key difference to me is the “or later” part. So even if the FSF releases an evil version 3.1 or whatever, everyone could just continue to use version 3 instead. Whereas if the FSF owns all of the intellectual property, they can relicense it in its entirety to strictly 3.1.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    I think you're on the right track, they just view protecting the FSF as something that needs to happen regardless, and it can therefore be relied on. Then if there's a horrible flaw with a previous GPL, they can at least force their projects to the new version.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    I don't understand why your original comment was flagged. I went and watched one of the Q&A videos from Linus Torvalds you mentioned and it was very educational. Thanks for your comment, even though the HN comment cancellers hated it.
  - ignoranceprior 5y ago
    If the evil version 3.1 is more restrictive than previous versions, then you are right to say people could just ignore it. However, if evil version 3.1 is more permissive, for an extreme example say they changed it to a verbatim copy of WTFPL, then there would be nothing stopping people from creating a proprietary fork of the project, the very thing copyleft was designed to prevent.
    - squiggleblaz 5y ago
      Would they be in breach of contract if they did so, or would some other legal recourse exist? The licence explicitly says: "The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns." A non-copyleft licence would not be similar in spirit. I could certainly imagine some proprietary code loving coalition seeking to control the FSF after RMS's eventual demise, so that they could create a new, non-copyleft licence. GPL 3 is aware of such concern: it says, "If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program", apparently trying to provide an alternative path to allow Linus Torvalds to accept only the versions he wants to accept.
  - Macha 5y ago
    There's nothing stopping the next release of an application that has historically been GPL 2 or later being released as GPL 3.1 only, however? They can't go back and take back the existing licenses to existing versions (the whole non-revocable term of the license) so other users can still give you those versions under those licenses even if the FSF decided they didn't want to themselves.
    - squiggleblaz 5y ago
      The following is crafted deliberately as something of a worst case scenario; I don't think it is even remotely likely. So GCC is 3.1 or later. RMS dies and Google, Facebook etc get in control of the FSF: after all, they are major contributors and beneficiaries. While this is going down, fearing the badness around the corner, the GCC project continues work on GCC under 3.1 only (and attempts to stop it, unsuccessfully). The FSF releases 4.0 which is a long and wordy version of 3 clause BSD. Google now forks the latest version of GCC before the project relicensed it. There are two versions continuing: Google GCC under GPL4+ and GCC GCC under GPL3.1. The community doesn't entirely know which branch to contribute to and amidst the mire all the new features of C++30 get added to a proprietary fork of Clang. In general, free software gets regarded as dusty and old and most development happens on compilers people bought.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        No need for that. https://github.com/android/ndk/wiki/Changelog-r18 https://github.com/android/ndk/wiki/Changelog-r18 https://fuchsia.dev/ https://fuchsia.dev/
msla 5y ago
The FSF is about protecting freedom, which includes being able to sue people who infringe on that freedom. A slogan without enforcement is toothless, and businesses only respect teeth.
Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y ago
To anyone wondering, pretty sure "Linus talking about GPLv3" here refers to Linus at Debconf in 2014 https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 https://youtu.be/5PmHRSeA2c8?t=2840 (from there to 56:51 it's about open source licenses)
- duxup 5y ago
  Thank you. That was helpful.
globular-toast 5y ago
There are libertarians and anarchists who think that freedom is having no laws at all. But what happens when a huge chemical company starts dumping waste on your lawn? Who do you call? They are free to do what they want, aren't they? Individual liberties can only go so far. If we want freedom as a society it is necessary to restrict individual freedom at the point that it begins to affect the freedoms and rights of others. In practice that means, unfortunately, governments, police and armies are necessary. Permissive licences are idealistic. Copyleft/FSF-style licences are pragmatic.
- superjan 5y ago
  I think your point is that copyleft creates extra value because those extending it are incentivized to contribute their extensions. But in the case of gcc as compared to llvm, permissive licensing looks to be at least as successful. An issue with copyleft that you need to commit to providing the source beforehand. If you are allowed to choose afterwards, you don’t need to ask in advance, and it’s easier to make the case that upstreaming your patches is in the organization’s best interest. And yes I know copyleft only requires only providing code to your users, but in practice the organization assumes that means the distribution can’t be enforced.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Libertarians still believe in property rights and a sufficient legal system that the answer to > But what happens when a huge chemical company starts dumping waste on your lawn? is "sue them to oblivion".
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    But when they start dumping it on the common meadow behind your property, or the street in front of it, you can't do shit because you don't own those... And libertarians only believe in a legal system sufficient to protect property rights and nothing else. They should call themselves selfitarians, because what they're all about isn't "liberty", but selfishness.

notRobot 5y ago

Can someone please tl;dr why this was a requirement in the first place? I trust the FSF and it seems like a good idea, but I'm not sure why.

sigjuice 5y ago
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
- jhonsrid 5y ago
  This seems to imply copyright assignment to the FSF is _required_ for GNU projects? I wonder what RMS's take is on a unilateral change like this in one of the highest profile GNU projects?
dec0dedab0de 5y ago
This may not be the FSF stance, but I can think of 3 reasons. The main one is it is easier to change the license if you want to. IANAL so I'll probably mess up these next two, which I believe are more theoretical than anything in regard to software. At least in the US. It is possible for a copyright holder to revoke a license. so there could be an important contribution living in the code base and then one day the author could revoke the license and they would have to remove the code, and somehow prove their replacement was not infringing. There is a concept of Joint Authorship. Where it could be possible for a contributor to claim joint copyright over the entire project, and then release it on their own under any license they want. I could be wrong, but I believe it has happened where book editors that didn't have an air tight contract, were able to claim joint copyright over a book they edited, and release their own versions with a different publisher.
- mcguire 5y ago
  "It is possible for a copyright holder to revoke a license. so there could be an important contribution living in the code base and then one day the author could revoke the license and they would have to remove the code, and somehow prove their replacement was not infringing." I don't believe that is true. A license is a contract; there are only two ways to revoke a contract: if the contract is illegal or if the contract provides terms to let you revoke it. If you publish software under the GPL, there is no way to revoke the license. You could stop supporting the contribution in the code base and release alternate versions under different licenses, but the versions in the code base under the GPL remain available under the original terms.

mikece 5y ago

Given three plus decades of FOSS experience, are the fears of permissive licenses like MIT and BSD (that companies will take, fork, and not give back in a meaningful way which will kill open source) considered to be well-founded? Could Linux not be as pervasive and important as it is today had it been released under a BSD license?

ajross 5y ago
I guess that depends on definitions of "pervasive and important" more than it does facts on the ground. To my eyes, the number of open source drivers (near zero) available for Apple hardware, developed to run on their BSD-licensed kernel, pretty much provides all the evidence I need. No, a BSD Linux would have long since disappeared behind the curtain of some tech giant or another, just like Mach did into NeXT/Apple.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Though binary blobs are a thing, albeit a somewhat controversial thing. Assuming a BSD-licensed Linux is a fairly small step away from assuming that Linux didn't exist given the existence of various BSD Unix flavors. And most people I know feel fairly strongly that, in the absence of Linux, BSD Unix would have come to the forefront.
  - Macha 5y ago
    But would it have come to the forefront in the form of FreeBSD, or in the form of macOS or a similar system?
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Service providers were already using the BSDs in the dot-com buildup when Linux wasn't quite as far along. For anyone interested, here's a debate between Bryan Cantrill and Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols I recorded last year on the topic "If Linux didn't exist, would we have had to invent it?" https://grhpodcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/Cantrill_Nichols.mp3 https://grhpodcasts.s3.amazonaws.com/Cantrill_Nichols.mp3

woofie11 5y ago

I think the FSF is starting to realize that Stallman is not forever, and FSF ethics aren't forever. Having the FSF have exclusive rights to change license terms with "or newer" terms and to hold copyrights to projects is a bad idea as the founders of the FSF are getting older. I trust the FSF, but I have no idea who the FSF will be in another 20 years.

pjmlp 5y ago
Actually everything GNU and Linux related. I am quite certain that when the generations that made this happen are gone, computer world will be back at business as usual like it was in the shareware days.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- anthk 5y ago
  Shareware days are dead. Also, there are diehard Libre GNU/Linux out there beside Stallman behind several projects.
  - enriquto 5y ago
    > Shareware days are dead. They aren't. Google's play store and Apple's app store are examples of thriving shareware platforms.
    - anthk 5y ago
      No, today's trends are the subscriptions. Far worse. Kinda like mainframes, but with a flat rate. Also, there is almost no shareware.
      - enriquto 5y ago
        > there is almost no shareware. According to the definition [0] of shareware: Shareware is a type of proprietary software which is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost with usually limited functionality or incomplete documentation but which can be upgraded upon payment. This includes subscriptions and in-app purchases. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareware

okprod 5y ago

I really hope GCC consulted with a lawyer before this

okprod 5y ago
This is a serious question. I know what they're doing/why, but GCC's structure and ability to handle legal situations isn't like the Linux Foundation.

CJefferson 5y ago

I wonder if this is largely a practical issue -- I've seen people waiting over a year for everything to get sorted out ( for example https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235288.html https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235288.html ), that's just not reasonable.

deng 5y ago

This is a good example of how to not steer a FOSS project. Seriously, what was the steering committee thinking? I mean, I tend to agree with this decision, but do they honestly believe that just announcing such a big change without any public discussion beforehand is going to fly?

freeone3000 5y ago
This doesn't change anything for anybody except the copyright holder (who, if you've signed a copyright assignment statement, is not you). They're allowing contributors to maintain copyright over code submitted to GNU projects, and if you want to assign copyright to the FSF, you still can. The COS (a form of CLA) still grants the FSF the right to redistribute the code under GPLv3, so it doesn't affect users, either. I don't really know what a public consultation would have done here.
- deng 5y ago
  Just follow the thread in the gcc mailing list. There are loads of questions now which need to be answered, just to name a few: - Can the steering committee make that decision? - Can the code be still easily(!) re-licensed to a possible GPLv4? - How can code later be re-licensed to GPL with runtime library exception or to LGPL? - Who should be named as copyright holder? It might very well be that all these questions can be easily answered, but that should have happened before.
  - nullc 5y ago
    Because almost always the employer owns their employees work product, you're going to end up with large swaths of GCC code having various megacorps being the exclusive copyright holder; potentially creating even more opportunities for Oracle v. Google like litigation over compliance minutia regarding code that is supposed to be freely available.
knz_ 5y ago
Well, this is a problem that FSF created. They tried to unilaterally appoint RMS to the steering committee and were forced to renege when most of GCC's top contributors threatened to walk away from the project. If they didn't get rid of the copyright aggreement there would have just been a fork or those people would have gone to work on other projects.

natch 5y ago

Off topic but reminds me, I wonder if copyright assignment or trademark assignment (if it applies) would have helped freenode. In the sense of helping it stay as it was, a friendly place for users and project maintainers.

colonwqbang 5y ago
Freenode should have been incorporated as a nonprofit foundation or something like that, with a clear mission. As long as the domain name (the key asset) is just owned privately by some project member, you have no guarantees.

marcodiego 5y ago

This may help contributors, but makes difficult to change the license in the future. I guess this the main reason why FSF requires copyright assignment to them. Now that this is no longer needed, I really hope that the world will not need anything newer than GPLv3.

josephcsible 5y ago
This was addressed on the mailing list: changing to future versions of the GPL will still be possible, due to the "or any later version" wording. It's only changing to a non-GPL license that will now be impossible.
- Kenji 5y ago
  Isn't the "or any later version" clause super dangerous? What if a party somehow takes over the FSF and publishes a GPLv4 which is completely permissive? This seems like a time bomb. Am I misunderstanding something?
  - lmm 5y ago
    It's a real risk. You have to weigh that up against the possibility of someone finding a loophole in the GPLv3 (similar to what TiVO did with GPLv2, where they granted you a copyright license but used code signing to stop you actually making changes to the code on your device) that's patched in GPLv4, and your GPLv3-only code is incompatible with the GPLv4 so anyone who wants to use it in GPLv4 projects has to rewrite their own replacement instead.
  - ognarb 5y ago
    You can define a proxy since the GPL3. This is what we are doing at KDE so if a GPL4 appear, to apply to most KDE project you will need a vote of the KDE e.V. membership on it. For example: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSES/LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.txt https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSE...
segfaultbuserr 5y ago

snackematician 5y ago

I really hope other GNU projects, in particular Emacs, follow suit, though I doubt it will happen. In my experience it is a massive hassle to get the copyright disclaimer from my employers. I'm currently on hold from contributing to Emacs because my paperwork is working its way through the legal bureuacracy of my new employer. Also, I have former coworkers from previous companies who were enthusiastic about Emacs, but unwilling to go through the trouble of getting the paperwork to contribute. I think getting this paperwork through is probably more difficult in my industry, than in others -- I do R&D at a large pharmaceutical. Still, I think the copyright disclaimer is one of the biggest factors that is limiting the number and diversity of Emacs contributors. I also think it's unnecessary, as Linux does not have this requirement, and it has successfully enforced the GPL, for example on router manufacturers.

knorker 5y ago
GNU Radio did this recently. Now they just have a CLA, I think.

ExcavateGrandMa 5y ago

I which this let ppl pushing pseudo (anonymous) commits... that make the diff :Ð & then appreciate the reviewers... :Ð Oh my!

marcodiego 5y ago

The only GNU project I directly contributed code to was GNU nano. I was probably only willing to do so because it did not require anything like a CLA. But, if this didn't need any bureaucracy, I'd be glad to do so. I personally trust the FSF. Every new version of the GPL came after players tried to circumvent it so, having new updated versions of the GPL prevents players from abusing the right they have when new (legal) holes are discovered. AFAICS, the only institution I'd trust to assign my copyrights to is the FSF. They have proved time and time again to not sacrifice freedom and privacy in the name of profit or convenience.

Blikkentrekker 5y ago
I am currently sitting on quite a few library improvements in Guile, so many that I forgot most of them but they mostly have to do with XML parsing, that were never upstreamed. The reason for this is that the process for upstreaming it was significantly more involved that writing it, and also that they require my name and address for it and would intend to publish my name publicly. Wine also has the requirement for publishing names of all contributors, which the project claims is about “trust”. Even if I were to trust Wine with my name, which I more or less would, I do not trust everyone who sees my name in that public file with it.
- pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
  > the process for upstreaming it was significantly more involved that writing it It's not very different from the way things work today, where many projects insist on doing everything through GitHub, and if you aren't on there, then it's a massive PITA. It truly is the Facebook of the programming world, down to how oblivious everyone inside the gates are about anything outside of it. ("What do you mean you can't RSVP because we're using Facebook to do that? Isn't everybody using Facebook?")

nonfamous 5y ago

This is a good thing for the health of the GNU ecosystem, and I hope other GNU projects adopt this practice. Related story: a couple of years ago, the current maintainer of an Emacs package reached out to me. Apparently the FSF wanted to make it part of the official Emacs distribution, and wanted me to assign my copyright to them. I was happy to do so, BUT: the code was written more than 20 years ago when I was at university, which (according to the FSF) meant I needed to get a copyright release from the university, in a country I no longer lived in and that I had not interacted with for literal decades. This seemed like far too much trouble at that point, so I gave up, and the package never became part of Emacs.

brnt 5y ago
Wouldnt the copyright have expired at that point?
- rwmj 5y ago
  Copyright terms last effectively forever, and certainly a lot lot longer than 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_term
- johnzim 5y ago
  Copyright tends to run from the death of the author for a period (in the US is 70 years after death). As for where it's assigned to an institution, it'll still have a long time to run - decades!
- rodgerd 5y ago
  Copyright is either the death of the author plus a period, or a length of time for a non-human entity such as a university or limited liability company.
- NavinF 5y ago
  In a sane world it would have expired, but not here. cf. The Mickey Mouse Protection Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act...

btilly 5y ago

Nobody is discussing the reason for the copyright-assignment requirement. I only know about it because I was caught in the issue that it means to prevent nearly 20 years ago. The issue is that in many places (for example New York State), work done by a professional employee actually belongs to your employer. A developer can write code, contribute it where they want, and license it as they wish. But the code is actually owned by their employer. Which means that if there is a future problem, the employer can assert their copyright interest and people who thought that they had the right to use that code, suddenly don't. Because developers themselves are seldom aware of such rules, the FSF took the ultra-safe approach of requiring employers to sign off. That way they are absolutely sure that there will never be a problem. However other open source projects have found that, in practice, problems are rare. And when there is a problem, the employers usually will agree to the license.

kencausey 5y ago
If you can go into it, what was the resolution of the issue in which you were caught?
daptaq 5y ago
AFAIK (one of the) the main reason for the copyright requirements is so that the GNU project can update the license, when a new version of the GPL is released, fixing loopholes or other issues in older versions. I am weary of dropping the copyright assignment, because issues like Tivoization could always pop up without anyone anticipating it, and even have contributors actively resisting the updates to fix these issues. (Edit: What I also came to think of is that GCC recently positioned itself in opposition to the FSF because of the "Stallman-Controversy". Is this a kind of retaliation on their part?)
- wahern 5y ago
  Copyright assignment is about enforceability, not updating the license. It's much easier to maintain copyright registrations, and to prosecute an infringement case, when you control all the copyrights. Anyhow, we don't have to guess why they want it: > Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, there are very substantial procedural advantages to registration of copyright. And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license. If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors. > In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html

linuxhansl 5y ago

Copyright assignment is an interesting topic. With the copyright assigned the owner of said copyright can release the code under any license of their choosing. Some dual license open source projects do this, the organization requires the copyright assignment and hence they can release the code under an open source license and their own closed license. License changes here are perfectly OK (legally at least). Interesting cases are those without a copyright grant. Now you allow the group to only produce copies and releases in accordance to that specific license. License changes now are questionable. Can you relicense Apache 2.0 as AGPL? BSD as Apache 2.0? (Without owning the copyright, my guess in both cases is no.)