3 ms·

Others in the space do ask for copyright assignment though, eg. FSF.

bingohbangoh 5y ago
It didn’t sound like the .NET foundation did so ahead of time
MereInterest 5y ago
If I recall correctly, that was because it was legally uncertain whether a copyright infringement case could be brought by an entity other than the copyright holder in the case of GPL violations. Since then, lawsuits to ensure GPL compliance haven't really materialized, since the threat of lawsuits tends to be sufficient, so assignment of copyright hasn't been necessary for other similar foundations. Intent also matters, and I would trust the FSF much more than I would trust a Microsoft-based foundation.
heavyset_go 5y ago
If you're moving your project to the FSF, it's because you want their lawyers to defend your users' rights under the GPL/LGPL/AGPL. From the FSF[1]: > 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. tl;dr: the FSF can't enforce a project's license unless they're copyright holder. [1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html

It didn’t sound like the .NET foundation did so ahead of time

If I recall correctly, that was because it was legally uncertain whether a copyright infringement case could be brought by an entity other than the copyright holder in the case of GPL violations. Since then, lawsuits to ensure GPL compliance haven't really materialized, since the threat of lawsuits tends to be sufficient, so assignment of copyright hasn't been necessary for other similar foundations. Intent also matters, and I would trust the FSF much more than I would trust a Microsoft-based foundation.

heavyset_go 5y ago

If you're moving your project to the FSF, it's because you want their lawyers to defend your users' rights under the GPL/LGPL/AGPL. From the FSF[1]: > 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. tl;dr: the FSF can't enforce a project's license unless they're copyright holder. [1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html