Re: Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup

[Mikael Hallendal <micke imendio com>]

On l�2004-08-07 at 12:17 +0100, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:

Rui, could you chill down a bit? Take a few breaths, go to the beach,
have a beer or whatever makes you calm down...

> On Sat, 2004-08-07 at 13:07 +0200, Thomas Vander Stichele wrote:
> > On Sat, 2004-08-07 at 11:32, Rui Miguel Seabra wrote:
> > Instead you chose to do what you have done all along in this thread -
> > accuse people of only seeing the legal side, saying that you look at it
> > from the moral side, but providing ZERO backup on why it is immoral.
> 
> I've said it more than once. It's immoral to pretend to be a Free
> Software project just to be able to take Free Software code into
> proprietary software. Specially because you developers _have_ to sign
> that copyright assignment to participate in the community.

No one is pretending anything they are not. Evolution will always be
Free Software in one way or another. Either by Novell continuing to
develop it as such (they have never said they'd stop) or by someone
picking up where they left of if they decide to (either because they
don't have the resources or that they one day turn evil and will only
continue to work on their proprietary branch).

Also keep in mind that yes, if you sign copyright and write some code
you'll give them the right to use it for non-free software, but at the
same time they have given you millions of lines of code to use _as_ free
software.

> > > > All you've said up to now in this thread to anyone you replied is "you
> > > > are wrong".
> > > 
> > > That's a lie. It's the oppposite. I've gone to great lengths explaining
> > > the problem, and most of the answers are that "I'm wrong".
> > 
> > No, you haven't.  You hide yourself behind a concept of morality of the
> > GPL but you don't back it up.
> 
> It's not "a concept of morality" the purpose of the GPL is keeping
> software Free. Ximian/Novel are just using a way to make non-Free GPL'ed
> software: by owning all copyrights.

Released Evolution will always be Free no matter what they might do in
the future.

Are you just afraid that they are going to stop give you your favorite
email client for free? I think your position is more immoral than
theirs, you just want to have have have without giving anything (pretty
egoistic if you ask me)...

I do however see one drawback of copyright assignment and that is that
some people can't work on those project due to contracts with their
employeer stating that the employeer should have all copyright. This is
however exactly the same as working on an FSF project.

Regards,
  Mikael Hallendal

-- 
Imendio HB, http://www.imendio.com/