Re: Copyright assignment

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

Hello,

> > > Similarly it removes the ability to build on code by reuse, since the
> > > owner of the code being reused may not wish to assign the use and cannot
> > > viably go around assigning it to Novell, Sun and everyone else.
> > 
> > I do not understand your scenario.
> 
> If there is a large useful piece of third party code then I cannot use
> it in Evolution because I am not the original owner, even though the GPL
> encourages such reuse, and such reuse is the basis of the power of the
> free software movement. Instead I must rewrite it.
> 
> Also if I contribute code to Evolution then Novell ends up owning it so
> I cannot contribute the same code to Open Office (because Sun demand to
> own it) - and of course vice versa. So a programmer would have to write
> three implementations for something generic - one for Sun, one for
> Novell and one for everyone else.

Understood, yes, seems like a downside.

You could argue that if its useful in more than one place, that code
should go into a system library, X11/LGPL that everyone can use.

> > > Since the contract says "supporting files" that appears to prohibit
> > > submitting a patch to Evolution which uses a third party library since
> > > that third party library is "supporting files" and the contributor does
> > > not own it.
> > 
> > We could not incorporate such code;  See section 6(a).
> 
> Which damages the process of creating good software. You are forcing a
> lot of extra work to be done which benefits nobody in the free software
> world.

That qualifies as a point where the need for the feature would compel
someone to fork.

Notice that the same thing happens with any other copyright
assignments, like the FSF: I can not include in GCC a chunk of code
that might be genuinely useful if the copyright is not transfered to
them and the code must be part of gcc.

Miguel.