Re: Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup

[Robert Love <rml novell com>]

On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 14:25 -0600, Andreas J. Guelzow wrote:

> No! Please reread it. It says "a" program not "the" program. There are 2
> clauses there. There is no indication that the program referred to in
> the second clause need also be distributed under a DFSG license.

Program (with a capital P) is defined in 1(a) to mean Ximian Evolution.

Both the intent and the actual result of clause 4 is that your changes
(or all of Evolution, with your changes) are promised to be released
under a DFSG (or whatever it is now) license.

The fact that Evolution is currently available under the GPL, coupled
with the grant back, severely limits the sort of evils that are possible
anyhow.  If at some time T in the future, a non-free version of
Evolution was made available, everything prior (t<T) would still be
available under the previous (presumably still GPL) license.  This is NO
different than EVERY other piece of software.  Someone always owns the
copyright and they can do whatever they want.  I can do whatever I want
with my;  you can do whatever you want with your's.  The bulk of the
copyright assignment is giving the assignor EXTRA rights, such as the
grant back and clause 4.

I am really not following what the issue is, and I smack myself for
entering and now reentering this thread.

	Robert Love