a compromise on Evolution?

["C. Scott Ananian" <cscott cscott net>]

Having read all the posts on this topic with interest, let me suggest the
following compromise:
 a) patches to evolution *do* require a copyright assignment, but
 b) the assignment is to the GNOME foundation (alternatively to FSF)

The implicit understanding is that the GNOME foundation may offer a
non-exclusive royalty-free etc license of its contributions back to Novell
for its proprietary purposes so long as this advances GNOME's own
interests (ie as long as Novell is contributing to the evolution code
back, which remains free, etc).  If this agreement has to be made explicit
the foundation would need to think hard about the exact criteria used.
This may not be necessary: while Novell is contributing to the codebase,
the foundation has a strong incentive to continue to license back its
contributions in order not to have to maintain a fork.  Similarly, Novell
has a strong incentive to keep its contributions Free, for fear of losing
access to the (hopefully growing) outside contributions.

It's not perfect, but it's possibly a way to a) decentralize control over
the source (David Sugar's post started me thinking about this) while
b) allowing Novell/Ximian to achieve its own business objectives -- so
long as these continue to advance the cause of Free Software!

Some people will undoubtedly still refuse to contribute, because they
object to Novell's ability to offer proprietary versions of the source
code.  Novell similarly may object to losing total control of the product:
the GNOME foundation will have a de facto veto over Novell's proprietary
plans, so long as GNOME's contributions grow large enough.

Hopefully, however, both sides will see the benefits as well.
 --scott

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