Re: Copyright assignment

[Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org>]

<quote who="Elijah P Newren">

> Is there any problem with just stating that it's the maintainer's decision
> for each module?  Basically, there's two issues causing the commotion: (1)
> requiring copyright assignment means that the code could be released under
> a proprietary license, (2) requiring copyright assignment means that you
> lose potential contributors who don't like paperwork.

I think point (3) would be the number of different bodies the average GNOME
contributor would have to assign copyright to (and whether each module would
require separate assignment paperwork, but that's a smaller issue).

What if we found ourselves in the position of having four separate entities
that required copyright assignment on ten different modules? If we accepted
copyright assignment requirements in the general case now, and it became the
norm, rather than the exception?

I think that "maintainer's decision" is a totally acceptable policy for many
issues in GNOME, because it reduces policy over-engineering. ;-) However, in
this case, the choice to leave it to maintainers may create a "distributed
policy overload" that potential contributors will have to deal with.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australia                http://linux.conf.au/
 
            "you misspelt 'world dominatrix'" - James Wilkinson