A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On 26 Aug 2004, at 17:38, Andrea Glorioso wrote:

> > > > > > "Rob" == Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com> writes:
>
>
> > The FSF announced a little while ago that they would release
> > their (legal) tools for supporting this process,
>
> References?

From the horse's mouth:

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/sco/subpoena.html

> > and Linux now requires a better audit trail IIRC.
>
> My impression is that the tools the FSF wants to put in place won't be
> very useful, since they are based on copyright assigment and the whole
> mess about SCO and  the Linux kernel was  that (in SCO's opinion)  the
> developers who contributed code didn't have the copyright in the first
> place.

In their own projects, the tools have been in place for ages. Other 
projects are free to use or ignore them.
The FSF's procedures *would* help avoid unauthorised contributions by 
individual employees, but not by entire corporations as in SCO's 
fantasy. And they would allow a unified defense against a SCO-style 
lawsuit

> All of this boils down to the simple fact that either we read people's
> minds (so that we can know whether a  particular piece of software was
> copied from a copyrighted  work or was a  "creation") or everybody put
> their code in the open (not necessarily under a Free Software license)
> so that real accounting can be made.

I agree that public review is the best way of catching plagiarism.

> All the other options, as far as I  can tell, are either too difficult
> to achieve or dangerous for everybody but big, bad companies with a
> lot of money to spend in court.

The FSF's procedures avoid employers later claiming rights over 
contributed work. And they allow better defense of GPL infractions. And 
they raise a simple psychological barrier to unauthorised contributions 
(and possibly help prove malice). So IMHO they're better than nothing 
and not as bad as too much.

- Rob.