Re: Copyright assignment

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel ximian com>]

> > 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.
> 
> Indeed - it is one of the big problems. Right now we beat the
> proprietary folks in part by writing only two rather than ten of
> everything (clocks, window managers and cd players excepted).
> 
> In the FSF case it isnt usually a problem because other pure free 
> free software projects generally don't have a problem with FSF owned
> code because the FSF is trusted and dealing with one repository of
> other ownership doesn't bother people much.

So in the few cases where you are able to assign copyright to the FSF
your statement would hold true.  I maintain that most third party
software that you might want to plug into a GNU project will not have
all the authors around, or will have a different license, or will not
agree to relicense to the FSF.

Lets take an example: reusing chunks of the Linux kernel into the GNU
Hurd.  It is going to be almost impossible to have all the authors of a
piece of Linux kernel assign the copyright to the FSF for inclusion in
the Hurd, unless the copyright assignment requirement is dropped.

So we can discuss this all day: you can show me cases where it is not
the case, and I can show you cases where it is.  

You proved your point, and I am telling you that the same applies
elsewhere (and I think I proved my point).  

Miguel.