Re: [DotGNU]Licensing and copyright assignment in DotGNU

[fitzix]

David Sugar wrote:
> 
> In any GPL project it is nessisary to consider and address the issue of
> copyright assignment.  Copyright assignment is particularly essential because
> the GPL operates thru copyright law, not contract law.  If there is no clear
> or clean copyright holder to the work in each part and in whole, then there is
> no party that can cleanly enforce misuse of the GPL.
> 
> The copyright holder must of course be a trusted authority.  They often get
> all the responsibilities for dealing with copyright issues and none of the
> benefits.
> 
> Our choice I think is to have copyright assignment either to FD or the FSF.
> In that the FSF is already in place and has the infrastructure to handle this,
> it would seem the logical entity to use for this purpose.
> 
> Copyright assignment is done as a written document, and the FSF does have
> copyright assignment forms.  I believe we should do this for each package that
> is initiated.  Everyone working on the packages will have to sign and return a
> copyright assignment form for that to work.
> 
> Being a GNU package does not actually require copyright assignment to the FSF
> per say, but it does generally require some clean and clear copyright
> assignment to some individual, organization, or entity that can be trusted.  I
> am not speaking authorativily about the FSF in this regard, but only
> expressing my best understanding of their policy.  Certainly doing copyright
> assignment to the FSF is simpler and more convenient than doing it with
> another entity.
> 
> There are probably others who can much better explain copyright assignment and
> how the GPL works in regard to copyright law than I could.  I wanted to make
> sure everyone on this and the main free developers list are at least aware of
> the issues involved in copyright and copyright assignment in regards to free
> and copyleft software, and in particular in regard to packages that may become
> GNU packages.  Since rms follows the main list, I am certain he will correct
> any inaccuracies I may have made here.
> 
> David
> 

Assignment of copyright to the FSF sounds good to me.

        -Barry