Re: Copyright assignment

[Sander Vesik <sander_traveling yahoo co uk>]

 --- Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> wrote: 
> <quote who="Nat Friedman">
> 
> > GNOME requires certain parts of the Mozilla project; Mozilla has required
> > copyright assignment.
> > 
> > So, there's no precedent in GNOME for denying inclusion to projects which
> > are owned by non-GNOME parties or which ask that contributors assign
> > copyright to a third non-GNOME party.  In fact, precedent goes the other
> > way on this issue.
> 
> Note that there is a big difference between "required by dependency" and
> "included in an official GNOME release", so there really is no precedent
> here.
> 
> That said, I can't see any serious problems with the copyright assignment
> policies for Evolution. The only worrying thing for me is whether we turn
> this into a general precedent for future modules. Let's forget the specifics
> of Evolution for a moment, and consider the general case...

In general, having say sign five legal letters to be able to hack on all parts of
desktop would be rather limiting. So really, it would be nice if the general policy
was that such assignment requirements are and contiunue to be very much
unacceptable. Foundation getting its act together and offering a way to assign
copyrights to itself would also help to remove problems with the single assignment
related concern GNOME should be concewrned about, that is licencing integrity. 

Having a futuire written policy of "there is no copyright assignment needed or such
will be assigned to the foundation" would be good.

> 
> - Jeff
> 
> -- 
> What's all that about?                           http://www.no-name-yet.com/
>  
>    "There are men with an appetite for fight and a sense of occasion, and
>                   then there is Waugh." - SMH, about Steve



	
	
		
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