Re: [O] New maintainer

[Alan L Tyree]

Jambunathan K writes:

> Bastien <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> And it does not take too big a brain to understand why: if people
>> were allowed to retract their assignment when they want for changes
>> that have been published, the copyright assignment process would
>> undermine the whole purpose of the GPL license, which is to make
>> it possible to let *others* contribute to free code.
>
> As a maintainer of GNU project, I expect that you should have a basic
> understanding of the purpose of the copyright assignment and GPL
> license.  From what I read above, I am not convinced that you have the
> right understanding.  Your articulation is clearly confusing and falling
> short.

As a former teacher of copyright law (University of Sydney), I think
that Bastien displays a very clear understanding of the effects of
copyright assignment. Your understanding is less than clear.  Bastien
gets a "Distinction" in my class. You do not.

Of course, I know that you will think that I am confused.

Bastien, thanks for your patience and help during your time in the
hotseat. You've done a marvelous job.

>
> See 
>
>         http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AssignCopyright
>
> You assign copyright to FSF so that you don't have to enforce GPL.  By
> assigning, one outsources the legal work of actual enforcing to FSF.
> Single holder of rights just makes the legal procedures lot more easy.
>
> A contract that cannot be enforced is worthless.  A license that you
> cannot enforce is equally so.  
>
> FSF says, assign me the rights, I will go after all the violators and
> force them to comply with GPL.
>
> Jambunathan K.


-- 
Alan L Tyree           http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel:  04 2748 6206     sip:address@hidden