Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>]

On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 10:41:42AM -0800, Eric Sandall wrote:
> Quoting Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>:
> > On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 09:40:47AM -0800, Eric Sandall wrote:
> > > There are two parts to this revision of our Social Contract[0] (SC) that
> > I'd
> > > like to propose.
> > >
> > > The second part, this one, talks about adding clauses to our SC for
> > ownership of
> > > contributions to SMGL.
> > >
> > > I would like to propose an addendum to Article I or a new Article 
> > > between
> > > Articles I and II:
> > >
> > > All developers of Source Mage GNU/Linux agree to assign over copyright 
> > > and
> > > ownership of their contributions for Source Mage GNU/Linux to the public
> > group
> > > Source Mage GNU/Linux under the GNU GPL.
> > >
> > > Would that cover the bases we're talking about?
> > >
> >
> > I think it should be clear that they need to document what work they do
> > through a ChangeLog, and it sould also specify that Source Mage is not
> > claiming authorship of their work changes.
> >
> > -Andrew
> 
> So:
> All developers of Source Mage GNU/Linux agree to assign over copyright and
> ownership, but not authorship, of their contributions, which shall be
> documented in a ChangeLog, for Source Mage GNU/Linux to the public group 
> Source
> Mage GNU/Linux under the GPL.
> 
> Better? Maybe needs to be more spread out and not have all the clauses in 
> one
> sentence?

I don't think this is necessary at the moment, for two reasons.

The second clause is implied by section 1 when it refers to the GPL, if 
they send it to us under the GPL.  However, somebody can submit code 
under a less restrictive license than the GPL, which is all fine and 
good, in certain cases, when it is distinct, unentangled code 
(law-speak: comprising mere aggregation instead of derivation).  Then 
again, this loophole is the exact case of the installer code at issue.  
If it's noted in the changelog that the copyright notice was moved to 
the ChangeLog from the beginning of the file, then we're in full 
GPL-compliance as far as I see it and no amendments are needed.  If they 
force us (and of course anybody else in order to prevent us from getting 
their code through a GPL-accepting proxy) to KEEP their copyright notice 
in a certain location, this is an additional requirement to the GPL, and 
is thus not even allowed to be re-released under the same GPL we have 
released the rest of the code under.  If we change our GPL to be "with 
copyright notices kept at the top of the files where they exist", we 
have to go back and get permission to change the GPL we used to be more 
restrictive, and then our code cannot then be considered FSF 
GPL-compatible.  They can ask us to do it, but not require.

Also, Requiring copyright assignment on incoming code is a philosophical 
additional requirement to the GPL.  That means our group is not 
GPL-compatible in spirit although by law it would be.  Any code we 
release is GPL, and there are no legal problems with enforcing copyright 
assignment, but then anybody can fork us and not have the requirement.  
Who is going to go through the effort when they don't with Gentoo?  The 
Free Software Foundation requires copyright assignement for many of its 
own projects, so we could do this, but I just don't think it's 
necessary, and I don't think it's the most free way, despite the fact 
that the FSF does it.

Seth

-- 
Seth Alan Woolley [seth at positivism.org], SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
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Security Team Leader Source Mage GNU/Linux http://www.sourcemage.org

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