Re: Copyright assignment

[Chris Toshok <toshok hungry com>]

On Sun, 2004-08-08 at 20:44 +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Sul, 2004-08-08 at 13:50, Miguel de Icaza wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> Your current text says "supporting files". Libraries are supporting
> files. This does not answer the problem. If I submit a change to use a
> library then you are requiring I submit the libraries it uses, and if
> I sign the paperwork and don't own those libraries you could even
> sue me for having submitted it.

On what grounds could Novell sue?  I would imagine if anyone had cause
to sue in such a situation it would be the author (if it's not the
author of the patch, of course) of the library you're considering a
supported file.  Novell would just refuse the submission.

But this is not to say I agree with your interpretation at all.  Your
submission doesn't include the library, nor should it.  It introduces a
dependency on that library, that's all.  The library of course would
have to be GPL compatible in order to use it in evo (and probably be
non-GPL, actually.. LGPL or other), but that's not something the
copyright assignment needs to address.  "supporting files" means
anything that's not program code that must be included in the evo source
distribution in order to build it (i.e. .m4 files, Makefiles, glade
files, data files used to generate C, etc.).  Libraries clearly do not
fall into this set.

This seems to me an intentional overgeneralization.  It is also
something that is completely fixable at the contributor-maintainer
level.

Chris