6 ms·

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,

by 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
- daptaq 5y ago
  Yes, it is probably primarily about enforceability, but why should that mean that updating the license is also part of the consideration?
  - wahern 5y ago
    There could be all kinds of secondary motivations, including that ability. But most GPL'd software includes the "or later" provision, which means it's relatively easy for the FSF to update the license of projects, especially if they stipulate that contributions must be licensed thusly. Note that with or without assignment, the FSF could never rescind the license on previously released software, except perhaps for infringers (because of the termination clause). So assignment doesn't actually provide much value on that score except as it relates to enforcement.
- linuxhansl 5y ago
  Can't you enforce a license too? A license is a contract and if code is released in breach of that license than should be enforceable as well. Is the issue that a license breach is a legally weaker case than copyright infringement?
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    A license is not (necessarily) a contract, so a license breach is (mainly) enforceable precisely because it _is_ a copyright violation.
- Blikkentrekker 5y ago
  > Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, They are published with a worldwide public licence; I'm not even sure how one can publish something such as that under any specific law. One drafts a public licence, and different parts of it are enforceable to different degrees in different jurisdictions. It is of course quite possible for the licence to be gnostic of the country of the acceptee, and apply differing provisions in different cases, but I would feel such would strongly go against F.S.F. philosophies.
kop316 5y ago
I figured that's why the GPL includes the language that says "GPL {x} or at your option a later version". That way, if you want to go to GPL {x+1}, the license already allows it.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Yup. But, remember, that's only if the original licensor actually executes that option, by explicitly stating so. If they says[1] "...under GPL version X", period, then that's it. ___ [1]: Hey, it's "the _singular_ 'they'", innit?
opk 5y ago
The GPL already includes a clause stating "or any later version" so GNU software can happily update the GPL version. Linux specifically has an exception to this. It is the dodgiest part of the whole GPL in my opinion and gives the Free Software Foundation a lot of power and makes it impossible to fork or replace the established organisation if it goes awry.
- carlhjerpe 5y ago
  Doesn't this work out a bit like MongoDB, where Amazon forked a version released before they replaced the GPL with their own license? Meaning the freedoms of the GPL will be withheld, no?
  - DSMan195276 5y ago
    Yes it's very similar, the scope is just vastly different. If you have the "or later" GPL clause in your license then any new version of the GPL is retroactively a valid licensing option for your code, even if it's vastly different or actually removes freedoms. If they wanted the FSF could release GPLv4 tomorrow that just says all code licensed under it is public domain, and instantly all code with the "or later" clause could be treated as public domain.
    - carlhjerpe 5y ago
      Thanks for the clarification.
- kube-system 5y ago
  But if you don’t own the copyright to a particular piece of the code, doesn’t that also mean you don’t have the authority to assign a license to it?
  - dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
    The GPL gives you a licence to the code, you don't need to own the copyright.
rodgerd 5y ago
> 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? "Random acts of rms" aren't a new problem for the GCC developers, and resulted in the egcs split, have caused ongoing pain with people trying to improve the ability of GCC to integrate with IDEs, and of course there's the whole debacle where the Clang developers offered their work to the FSF but Stallman missed the email and found it a decade later... However, several of the lead developers for C++ (at least) announced they were no longer going to be assigning their code ownership to the FSF in the wake of the recent FSF calls around rms, which has put the GCC project in the position where the have the choices to: 1. Hope the FSF change their mind and prioritise free software ahead of the Cult of Richard. 2. Commit to shipping a sub-par and increasingly irrelevant free software compiler. 3. Drop the CLA requirement. In the absence of any change on the first point, the third option looks like the best way to ensure that there is still a high-quality, GPL complier available.
- edelsohn 5y ago
  Apple and the LLVM developers were contributing to GCC, interacting with the GCC Community and in contact with the GCC Steering Committee. They knew that GCC was lead by the GCC Steering Committee, not RMS. The fact that they supposedly sent one email to RMS, did not follow up with RMS, and did not try to contact any other leadership in the GCC Project is convenient.
  - rodgerd 5y ago
    > The fact that they supposedly sent one email to RMS Stallman himself has confirmed that they did. Where does this "supposedly" come from?
    - edelsohn 5y ago
      Chris sent a message to RMS and RMS dropped the ball. There were other conversations with Chris and Chris dropped the ball as well.
  - 5y ago
geenew 5y ago
s/weary/wary
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
knz_ 5y ago
> (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?) More like a necessity to keep the project alive. Half of the top contributors threatened to leave when FSF tried to coup the steering committee.
- javagram 5y ago
  > More like a necessity to keep the project alive. Half of the top contributors threatened to leave when FSF tried to coup the steering committee. (Replied to you in another place as well) what is the source for “coup the steering committee”?
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
Many that contribute due not want such an update to the work they own without reviewing the new licence to see if they agree. Another solution which other projects use is a requirement that it be licensed to that project, and that project alone as permissive, which has no greater risk than assigning copyright to that project, the project can now relicense the code as it sees fit, but one continue to owns once work and one is free to license it to others how one sees fit, including not at all.
nine_k 5y ago
GCC has been split once (remember EGCS?), then merged back. It did not really hurt the project much, AFAICT. There can be another split.
- pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
  People might argue that it's a stretch (and there'd be some rationale to the argument, although it's ultimately wrong), but LLVM would be aptly considered a split, and it's a split that has had a huge impact. Lattner begins working on LLVM, a code generator. He and his advisor publish a paper "Architecture for a Next-Generation GCC" <https://llvm.org/pubs/2003-05-01-GCCSummit2003.html https://llvm.org/pubs/2003-05-01-GCCSummit2003.html>. When he considers this work sufficiently mature, Lattner attempts to donate it to the FSF and get it into mainline GCC, but he gets rebuffed. Apple, who has taken an interest and is his employer by that point, really wants LLVM to be a thing, though, so two years later, they announce Clang and eventually turn out an entire compiler toolchain. It transforms from the original LLVM per se into what people mean when they say "LLVM" today: the work at llvm.org—which, again, all started from what was expected to be a replacement for GCC's code generator.

by daptaq 5y ago

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

daptaq 5y ago
Yes, it is probably primarily about enforceability, but why should that mean that updating the license is also part of the consideration?
- wahern 5y ago
  There could be all kinds of secondary motivations, including that ability. But most GPL'd software includes the "or later" provision, which means it's relatively easy for the FSF to update the license of projects, especially if they stipulate that contributions must be licensed thusly. Note that with or without assignment, the FSF could never rescind the license on previously released software, except perhaps for infringers (because of the termination clause). So assignment doesn't actually provide much value on that score except as it relates to enforcement.
linuxhansl 5y ago
Can't you enforce a license too? A license is a contract and if code is released in breach of that license than should be enforceable as well. Is the issue that a license breach is a legally weaker case than copyright infringement?
- CRConrad 5y ago
  A license is not (necessarily) a contract, so a license breach is (mainly) enforceable precisely because it _is_ a copyright violation.
Blikkentrekker 5y ago
> Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, They are published with a worldwide public licence; I'm not even sure how one can publish something such as that under any specific law. One drafts a public licence, and different parts of it are enforceable to different degrees in different jurisdictions. It is of course quite possible for the licence to be gnostic of the country of the acceptee, and apply differing provisions in different cases, but I would feel such would strongly go against F.S.F. philosophies.

kop316 5y ago

I figured that's why the GPL includes the language that says "GPL {x} or at your option a later version". That way, if you want to go to GPL {x+1}, the license already allows it.

CRConrad 5y ago
Yup. But, remember, that's only if the original licensor actually executes that option, by explicitly stating so. If they says[1] "...under GPL version X", period, then that's it. ___ [1]: Hey, it's "the _singular_ 'they'", innit?

opk 5y ago

The GPL already includes a clause stating "or any later version" so GNU software can happily update the GPL version. Linux specifically has an exception to this. It is the dodgiest part of the whole GPL in my opinion and gives the Free Software Foundation a lot of power and makes it impossible to fork or replace the established organisation if it goes awry.

carlhjerpe 5y ago
Doesn't this work out a bit like MongoDB, where Amazon forked a version released before they replaced the GPL with their own license? Meaning the freedoms of the GPL will be withheld, no?
- DSMan195276 5y ago
  Yes it's very similar, the scope is just vastly different. If you have the "or later" GPL clause in your license then any new version of the GPL is retroactively a valid licensing option for your code, even if it's vastly different or actually removes freedoms. If they wanted the FSF could release GPLv4 tomorrow that just says all code licensed under it is public domain, and instantly all code with the "or later" clause could be treated as public domain.
  - carlhjerpe 5y ago
    Thanks for the clarification.
kube-system 5y ago
But if you don’t own the copyright to a particular piece of the code, doesn’t that also mean you don’t have the authority to assign a license to it?
- dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
  The GPL gives you a licence to the code, you don't need to own the copyright.

rodgerd 5y ago

> 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? "Random acts of rms" aren't a new problem for the GCC developers, and resulted in the egcs split, have caused ongoing pain with people trying to improve the ability of GCC to integrate with IDEs, and of course there's the whole debacle where the Clang developers offered their work to the FSF but Stallman missed the email and found it a decade later... However, several of the lead developers for C++ (at least) announced they were no longer going to be assigning their code ownership to the FSF in the wake of the recent FSF calls around rms, which has put the GCC project in the position where the have the choices to: 1. Hope the FSF change their mind and prioritise free software ahead of the Cult of Richard. 2. Commit to shipping a sub-par and increasingly irrelevant free software compiler. 3. Drop the CLA requirement. In the absence of any change on the first point, the third option looks like the best way to ensure that there is still a high-quality, GPL complier available.

edelsohn 5y ago
Apple and the LLVM developers were contributing to GCC, interacting with the GCC Community and in contact with the GCC Steering Committee. They knew that GCC was lead by the GCC Steering Committee, not RMS. The fact that they supposedly sent one email to RMS, did not follow up with RMS, and did not try to contact any other leadership in the GCC Project is convenient.
- rodgerd 5y ago
  > The fact that they supposedly sent one email to RMS Stallman himself has confirmed that they did. Where does this "supposedly" come from?
  - edelsohn 5y ago
    Chris sent a message to RMS and RMS dropped the ball. There were other conversations with Chris and Chris dropped the ball as well.
- 5y ago

geenew 5y ago

s/weary/wary

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

knz_ 5y ago

> (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?) More like a necessity to keep the project alive. Half of the top contributors threatened to leave when FSF tried to coup the steering committee.

javagram 5y ago
> More like a necessity to keep the project alive. Half of the top contributors threatened to leave when FSF tried to coup the steering committee. (Replied to you in another place as well) what is the source for “coup the steering committee”?

Blikkentrekker 5y ago

Many that contribute due not want such an update to the work they own without reviewing the new licence to see if they agree. Another solution which other projects use is a requirement that it be licensed to that project, and that project alone as permissive, which has no greater risk than assigning copyright to that project, the project can now relicense the code as it sees fit, but one continue to owns once work and one is free to license it to others how one sees fit, including not at all.

nine_k 5y ago

GCC has been split once (remember EGCS?), then merged back. It did not really hurt the project much, AFAICT. There can be another split.

pwdisswordfish8 5y ago
People might argue that it's a stretch (and there'd be some rationale to the argument, although it's ultimately wrong), but LLVM would be aptly considered a split, and it's a split that has had a huge impact. Lattner begins working on LLVM, a code generator. He and his advisor publish a paper "Architecture for a Next-Generation GCC" <https://llvm.org/pubs/2003-05-01-GCCSummit2003.html https://llvm.org/pubs/2003-05-01-GCCSummit2003.html>. When he considers this work sufficiently mature, Lattner attempts to donate it to the FSF and get it into mainline GCC, but he gets rebuffed. Apple, who has taken an interest and is his employer by that point, really wants LLVM to be a thing, though, so two years later, they announce Clang and eventually turn out an entire compiler toolchain. It transforms from the original LLVM per se into what people mean when they say "LLVM" today: the work at llvm.org—which, again, all started from what was expected to be a replacement for GCC's code generator.