4 ms·

It's just so weird. If you think about it, this is the FSF saying that they don't believe the GPL works.

gmfawcett 4y ago
I think it intentionally doesn't work in the way you're speculating here. Assigning copyright to FSF means that they can relicense the code in the future. We trust that this future license will be a GPL derivative. Suppose I don't sign over copyright. Instead I license my code to the world under GPLv3, and you incorporate it into your project. You can use and share my code under the terms of GPLv3, of course. But that doesn't mean you can share it under a future GPL version, say GPLv99, without my permission -- because the terms of those versions may be incompatible.
- legalcorrection 4y ago
  A huge number of projects just license as "GPLv2/3 or later"
  - p_l 4y ago
    The default copy-paste license statement provided with GPL v2 and v3 explicitly allows "any future version" as well. It's rarer to encounter projects that remove that language (most importantly, Linux kernel)
- munch117 4y ago
  The linked FSF statement by Eben Moglen is about enforceability, not future GPL licenses. The normal state of affairs for a GPL'ed project is having mixed copyright. After all, you can't stop anyone from forking to add their own, copyrighted, changes. That's the whole point. If mixed copyright means the GPL doesn't well enough, then the GPL doesn't work well enough, period. This is not an anti-GPL statement, on the contrary: Most people seem to trust the GPL well enough to not require copyright assignment. The FSF is the odd one out.
  - gmfawcett 4y ago
    Thank you, that's insightful. I'm happy to be corrected!
spicybright 4y ago
If I'm understanding, I don't even get why you would go through the effort. It sounds like the author wants to add these features to main-line emacs, and expect other people to maintain it while he holds some kind of copyright. Emacs is one of the last pieces of software people would want to "move fast and break things". And what does copyright or ownership even get you? They took something existing that's been worked on since probably before he was born, agreed to the license, and added features only they have reviewed and tested. And I guess expected to face little resistance to get his code in to be tested and maintained by everyone else. It doesn't even sound like it's a big deal to maintain their branch. They said mainline is merged in every hour. The hardest part sounds like adding a different URL in your package manager and dealing with a rare merge conflict (which you could easily put off for a long time if you don't care about bleeding edge). So weird is extremely accurate.
gumby 4y ago
FSF has required an assignment since day 0 (I wrote the blanket assignment a few years later when Cygnus was paying people to changed code owned by the FSF). The base problem is: who has standing to sue if there is a GPL violation. People have sued in this case when it was Linux (which does not require an assignment), but no defendant has yet tried the defense “you don’t have standing to sue me because you are not the copyright holder of the lines of code in question”. Like the FSF, I fear that this could unfortunately be a very effective defense (against being sued for violating the license) in most jurisdictions.
- mattl 4y ago
  1989 checks out with GPL v1. The FSF prior to GPL was a bunch of different licenses. The idea is at least that the FSF can update a buttload of code to GPL 4, 5, 900, etc if a flaw in GPL is discovered.
- pabs3 4y ago
  If Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio, the answer will be "anyone who has received GPL code can sue for GPL compliance": https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html Edit: Case timeline: sued in state court as a contract claim, vizio moved it to federal court saying its a copyright claim, federal judge kicked it back to state court to hear the contract claim. https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/
  - funcDropShadow 4y ago
    > If Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio, the answer will be "anyone who has received GPL code can sue for GPL compliance": In the U.S. . The GPL tries to match different international law systems.
    - pabs3 4y ago
      I feel like the principles used to argue this case are applicable elsewhere too, according to Wikipedia, it sounds like at least in England, Europe and South Africa have the concept of a "third-party beneficiary" to a contract: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_beneficiary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_beneficiary
beanjuiceII 4y ago
i think its just for purposes of say..upgrade to new future gpl etc, doesn't seem unreasonable

I think it intentionally doesn't work in the way you're speculating here. Assigning copyright to FSF means that they can relicense the code in the future. We trust that this future license will be a GPL derivative. Suppose I don't sign over copyright. Instead I license my code to the world under GPLv3, and you incorporate it into your project. You can use and share my code under the terms of GPLv3, of course. But that doesn't mean you can share it under a future GPL version, say GPLv99, without my permission -- because the terms of those versions may be incompatible.

legalcorrection 4y ago
A huge number of projects just license as "GPLv2/3 or later"
- p_l 4y ago
  The default copy-paste license statement provided with GPL v2 and v3 explicitly allows "any future version" as well. It's rarer to encounter projects that remove that language (most importantly, Linux kernel)
munch117 4y ago
The linked FSF statement by Eben Moglen is about enforceability, not future GPL licenses. The normal state of affairs for a GPL'ed project is having mixed copyright. After all, you can't stop anyone from forking to add their own, copyrighted, changes. That's the whole point. If mixed copyright means the GPL doesn't well enough, then the GPL doesn't work well enough, period. This is not an anti-GPL statement, on the contrary: Most people seem to trust the GPL well enough to not require copyright assignment. The FSF is the odd one out.
- gmfawcett 4y ago
  Thank you, that's insightful. I'm happy to be corrected!

spicybright 4y ago

If I'm understanding, I don't even get why you would go through the effort. It sounds like the author wants to add these features to main-line emacs, and expect other people to maintain it while he holds some kind of copyright. Emacs is one of the last pieces of software people would want to "move fast and break things". And what does copyright or ownership even get you? They took something existing that's been worked on since probably before he was born, agreed to the license, and added features only they have reviewed and tested. And I guess expected to face little resistance to get his code in to be tested and maintained by everyone else. It doesn't even sound like it's a big deal to maintain their branch. They said mainline is merged in every hour. The hardest part sounds like adding a different URL in your package manager and dealing with a rare merge conflict (which you could easily put off for a long time if you don't care about bleeding edge). So weird is extremely accurate.

gumby 4y ago

FSF has required an assignment since day 0 (I wrote the blanket assignment a few years later when Cygnus was paying people to changed code owned by the FSF). The base problem is: who has standing to sue if there is a GPL violation. People have sued in this case when it was Linux (which does not require an assignment), but no defendant has yet tried the defense “you don’t have standing to sue me because you are not the copyright holder of the lines of code in question”. Like the FSF, I fear that this could unfortunately be a very effective defense (against being sued for violating the license) in most jurisdictions.

mattl 4y ago
1989 checks out with GPL v1. The FSF prior to GPL was a bunch of different licenses. The idea is at least that the FSF can update a buttload of code to GPL 4, 5, 900, etc if a flaw in GPL is discovered.
pabs3 4y ago
If Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio, the answer will be "anyone who has received GPL code can sue for GPL compliance": https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html Edit: Case timeline: sued in state court as a contract claim, vizio moved it to federal court saying its a copyright claim, federal judge kicked it back to state court to hear the contract claim. https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/
- funcDropShadow 4y ago
  > If Conservancy win their lawsuit against Vizio, the answer will be "anyone who has received GPL code can sue for GPL compliance": In the U.S. . The GPL tries to match different international law systems.
  - pabs3 4y ago
    I feel like the principles used to argue this case are applicable elsewhere too, according to Wikipedia, it sounds like at least in England, Europe and South Africa have the concept of a "third-party beneficiary" to a contract: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_beneficiary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-party_beneficiary

beanjuiceII 4y ago

i think its just for purposes of say..upgrade to new future gpl etc, doesn't seem unreasonable