Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 18:55 UTC (Sat) by freealter (guest, #4335)
Parent article: Stallman on GCC, LLVM, and copyleft

I am very surprised that nobody said that, for any code contributed to gcc, the copyright must be transfered to the Free Software Foundation.

It makes contributing to GCC harder, as for some organisations transfering copyright is unusual and not so easy. For individual developpers, it means administrative work also.

It also weakens the strength of the GPL licence of GCC. If for any reason the Free Software Foundation wishes to change the licence of Gcc, she can. Obviously, it is a very low probability scenario. Nevertheless, it is possible.

Anything slowing down the easyness to take part to Gcc development is bad from a collaboration point of view. And to some extent, it may explain the dynamism of the developments around LLVM.

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 19:17 UTC (Sat) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (1 responses)

Every time I see someone send a patch to a gcc mailing list, get a reply saying "you must submit a copyright assignment first", and then see that person actually come back a few weeks later saying they did it, I am quite surprised. But, I'm surprised more often than not -- it seems like most people approaching GCC actually do go ahead and do the annoying administrative work required for their submission to be accepted.

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 20:31 UTC (Sat) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

Nowadays a lot of companies have blanket copyright assignments for GNU.

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 20:31 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> It also weakens the strength of the GPL licence of GCC. If for any reason the Free Software Foundation wishes to change the licence of Gcc, she can. Obviously, it is a very low probability scenario. Nevertheless, it is possible.

Actually, if I understand correctly, the FSF can *N*O*T* change the licence of GCC (very much). Part of the copyright assignment is a "promise" by the FSF that any new licence will support the four freedoms.

Any new licence that breaks that promise, breaks the copyright assignment, and means the new licence is not valid.

Cheers,
Wol

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 21:46 UTC (Sat) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] (5 responses)

Yep, there's a "poison pill" to protect the interests of contributors should FSF go bankrupt. It limits how the software licenses it holds could be sold by a receiver. I've always liked that clause as it shows a depth of understanding of corporate law, which is unexpected from reading the philosophical statements of the FSF. I think combining the two worlds is one of the reasons the FSF has been so very successful (a lot of "reform the world through software" groups are nowhere to be seen after a few years).

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 25, 2014 22:15 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

The only problem there, as we saw with SCOG, is that it seems bankruptcy judges have no problem selling off rights that the bankrupt entity didn't actually possess. Judge Gross "sold off" SCOG's Unix, despite the fact Novell owned it.

And it was pointed out that another judge rewrote a contract when a publisher went bust, that effectively gutted an author's rights. The original contract gave the author a cut of the gross income. The Judge changed the contract to give him a cut of the net after the buyer's expenses...

What's to stop a bankruptcy judge pulling the same stunt if they get their hands on the FSF's assets?

Cheers,
Wol

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 26, 2014 13:23 UTC (Sun) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link] (2 responses)

IIRC the transfer of copyrights to the FSF is limited in that the successor has to keep its part of the contract (distributing the software as Free Software, IOW).

With some five-minutes googling, I found this:

http://dreamsongs.com/ihe/IHE-110.html

that seems to confirm my recollections.

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 26, 2014 19:31 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

You clearly didn't comprehend what I wrote :-)

Which was that - in at least TWO cases documented on Groklaw - the assets sold by the bankruptcy judge included a whole bunch of rights that the bankrupt entity didn't actually have!

Cheers,
Wol

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 27, 2014 15:43 UTC (Mon) by hummassa (guest, #307) [Link]

I stand corrected...

Do not forget, for gcc all contributions copyright must be transfered to FSF ! Is it good ?

Posted Jan 26, 2014 15:48 UTC (Sun) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]

FSF is a 501(c)(3) charity. By USA law, the IRS does not permit the disposal of any assets, including copyrights, of a 501(c)(3) charity in a way not consistent with the stated mission of the charity. Furthermore, assets cannot legally be used for private benefit of any individual or company.

A bankruptcy situation with a charity is very different from that of a for-profit company. I suspect most lwn reads are very familiar with the latter but not with the former. The situations are quite different.