"Aaron W. LaFramboise" wrote: [...]

The strategy that the FSF uses is to require a formal copyright assignment for all non-trivial contributions. That puts them into a very good legal position, as they are able to license anything in any manner they like;

Wrong. While the FSF can sell all trensferred copyrights to Microsoft, the ASSIGNMENT AGREEMENT (contract) states that "The Foundation agrees that all of its distributions of the Transferred Work, or of any work "based on the Transferred Work" (that is any work that in whole or in part incorporates or is derived from all or part of the Transferred Work), shall be under a version of the Foundation's General Public License, Lesser General Public License or Library General Public License (collectively "LGPL").

apparently complete ownership also acts as a significant protection against claims of inappropriately-contributed code, and gives FSF a significant procedural advantage were there ever to be a dispute.

The downside is that going through the copyright assignment process is a real pain. While it really isn't that big of a deal, it is a significant barrier to potiential contributors. There also has to be some financial backing for this sort of thing, and I don't know if Boost Consulting, or anyone else, has the resources for this.

Aaron W. LaFramboise

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Jeremy Maitin-Shepard wrote: [...]

Technically, however,

they can authorize any third party to distribite the stuff on whatever terms they like. They just can't do it themselves without "polluting" the [L]GPL "brand."

that is not a barrier, since the foundation can create additional licenses with the desired provisions, and refer to such documents as additional versions of the General Public License or Lesser General Public License.

That would affect all works (not only the stuff owned by the FSF) released under GNU Lesser General Public License Version X or later and (note that the LGPL allowes one way conversion to the GPL) GNU Public License version X or later No assignment needed. regards, alexander. -- #include <war> // computer game war stuff ;-) int main() { unsigned explosive_power = 0; while (still_not_eliminated("FSF")) { send_a_bomb("FSF", explosive_power += 10/*kiloton*/); fork(); } }

Lars Gullik Bjønnes wrote:

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

| #include <war> // computer game war stuff ;-)

Is the boost list the right place for your crusade?

You're arguing with my sig file. regards, alexander. -- http://www.terekhov.de/GPL'ed-Sources.txt

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" wrote: [...]

projects) has. Particularly in light of what is happening with SCO and IBM,

SCO's claims are barred by the doctrine of copyright misuse (dispute with Novell on copyrights aside for a moment). That is tenth IBM's defense, IIRC. FSF's expansive claims are also barred by the doctrine of copyright misuse. And the GPL is "preempted" by First Sale anyway.

I think many companies evaluating open source libraries are interested not only in reasonable licensing terms, but an assurance of proper code ownership.

http://www.eclipse.org/legal/committerguidelines.html http://www.eclipse.org/legal/contributionquestionnaire.html

For the record, the recent FSF copyright assignment document I have a physical copy of requires all of FSF's assignees to obey the same re-licensing terms as the FSF. Perhaps earlier versions did not.

AFAIK, FSF's assignees are not required to obey anything apart from agreeing "not to assert patents which are necessarily infringed, i.e., it is not reasonably possible to avoid infringement, by the use or distribution of the Transferred Work against those who use or distribute the Transferred Work when the Transferred Work is used or distributed under the GPL or LGPL." Each FSF's assignee "reserves and retains for the benefit of itself and its subsidiaries and affiliated companies a nonexclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, fully paid up right and license to use, execute, copy, make derivative works of, display, perform, distribute, sell, license and otherwise transfer each Transferred Work and derivative works thereof and to authorize others to do any of the forgoing under any terms and conditions." Is this the part of the agreement you're talking about? It's totally irrelevant with respect to what I said earlier. regards, alexander.

"Aaron W. LaFramboise" wrote: [... "FSF's assignees" ...]

No. I found only one hit for this wording, here: http://www.mail-archive.com/bug-glibc@gnu.org/msg00395.html I am actually unsure of where this wording comes from, as it is significantly different from all of the standard FSF assignments.

Well, I'm not surprised. ;-)

I found a copy of (old; the FSF now mails the forms to developers directly) assignment forms here: http://pluto.cdpa.nsysu.edu.tw/xemacs/old-beta/FSF assign.future was the standard form for most developers. The recent, physical copy of an assignment form that I have examined is very similar to this one.

Ah. Now I see what you mean by saying "FSF's assignees". ;-) Well, but the term "assignees" doesn't include "nonexclusive licensees" (and/or "sublicensees"), oder? As long as the GPL is not a binding contract restricting the distribution of lawfully made copies, any "licensed" owner of a copy [read: everybody and his dog] "is entitled, without the authority of the copyright owner, to sell or otherwise dispose of the possession of that copy" under any terms s/he likes provided that new terms don't violate any exclusive rights of the "FSF's assignees" (again modulo first sale and other copyright exceptions). regards, alexander.