Re: BSD license vs. Evolution assigment (was Re: Copyright assignment)

[Mikael Hallendal <micke imendio com>]

On tor, 2004-08-05 at 14:59 +0200, Danilo Šegan wrote:
> Yesterday at 22:20, Elijah P. Newren wrote (on d-d-l):

Hi,

> >> With all due respect - but this is UTTER TOTAL CRACK. The situation between 
> >> a project that is based on BSD / MIT licence (like say libxml unless i'm
> >> misremembering what Daniel did with the licencing situation) and a copyright
> >> assignment giving a way for proprietary versions of code are entirely different.
> >
> > Entirely different?  No, it isn't.  I admit that there is one difference
> > (anyone can make the BSD code proprietary, whereas only one entity can
> > make the code proprietary with copyright assignment).  
> 
> In a sense, this is exactly the point.  With BSD-licensed code, you
> get a sense of trust — there's no single "privileged" entity, so the
> company who contributed most tells you that you're as good as they
> are: you can make *their* code proprietary, in the same way they can
> make yours.  So, there's a symmetry.

Except there isn't a symmetry in who has written the code. I don't know
any hard number for Evolution but Ximian/Novell has spent large amount
of money on getting this software built. There is a big difference
between spending a few hour at one time or a couple of time and to
support the software with several developers several years.

Imho there is nothing wrong with Novell/Ximian wanting to keep copyright
of there own software. And I don't understand the arguing that it's
better if anyone (not even contributor) can come and make a proprietary
product out of the software than the chance of the company spending the
money to develop the product.

Regards,
  Mikael Hallendal

> With pure GPL (without assignment), there's also a symmetry: each
> contributor is able to later relicense code they wrote under different
> license, but they cannot relicense stuff they didn't write.
> 
> With GPL + assignment, we get many risks.  So far, I have developed
> enough trust only in FSF, perhaps Gnome Foundation (but it doesn't yet
> accept copyright assignment).
> 
> Of course, none of this should block Evolution from getting included
> in the desktop: as soon as we get enough significant contributors not
> willing to sign copyright form, we'd probably get a fork we'd used in
> desktop.
> 
> I'm sorry this discussion never moved off d-d-l, where it is clearly
> out-of-place.  I won't respond to d-d-l threads any more.
> 
> Cheers,
> Danilo
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