Re: The copyright assignment debate.

[Richard Stallman <rms gnu org>]

    One thing that I just realized is: We put back all the changes into the
    regular Evolution under GPL terms as soon as we receive the letter,

If the contract with Novell is changed to specify that this will be
done, it will go a long way towards eliminating the problems with the
current text.  Alan has pointed out some other details that also
deserve attention.

									and
    the GPL has a patent grant, so the code would be covered by this.

To correct a possible confusion, the GPL doesn't have anything that
resembles a patent grant.  What it has is the "liberty or death"
clause, article 7.  This says that if a patent prevents you from
redistributing the program as free software then you cannot
redistribute it at all.  (The alternative would be that you could
redistribute it effectively as non-free software.)

As others have noted, Novell after receiving a copyright assignment
would not be bound by the GPL.  So Novell could continue making
non-free releases even if all free releases had been blocked in this
way.