Re: Another job for the Gnome Foundation ?

[kelly poverty bloomington in us]

On Mon, 21 Aug 2000 14:20:24 -0700 (PDT), jg@pa.dec.com (Jim Gettys) said:

>The X experience is that it is very dangerous for there to be
>centralized copyright assignment: one of the things that let us get
>the copyright fixed after the TOG fiasco was that most of the code
>was actually copyright the various companies, making it easier to
>disentangle (TOG could only change the copyrights they owned, which
>were only the X consortium ones).  I have no more trust in some
>foundation staying solvent than I do in any particular company, nor
>do I (or many others) see any reason to trust the FSF.

>The problem could have been avoided entirely if copyright ownership
>were joint: with 20-20 hindsight, the best thing when the X
>consortium was shut down would have been to assign all the copyrights
>of the X consortium to all of the companies who made it up jointly:
>then it could not have been messed with.

>So in fact, I think given recent experience, that it would be best if
>sole copyright not normally go to a gnome foundation, but that the
>gnome foundation be able to become joint owner easily.  - Jim

One alternative might be to grant an exclusive, unlimited, revocable
license to the GNOME foundation.  The recipient of an exclusive
license stands in the stead of the actual owner legally, which can be
beneficial for various reasons.  Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the
GPL allows a deriver to do that.  Ask a lawyer.

Kelly