Re: [tdf-discuss] Copyright Assignments & the Document Foundation

[todd rme <toddrme2178@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Charles-H. Schulz <
charles.schulz@documentfoundation.org> wrote:

> Hello all, (apologies for this quite long email)
>
> I would like to discuss a bit the position of the Document Foundation
> with respect to copyright assignments. I understand there have been
> questions here and there about this topic, and it's perhaps necessary
> to explain our position.
>
> We initially agreed not to request the assignment of copyright for code
> contributions, and we can only witness that it's been so far the right
> decision: Many developers have joined us and contribute to the
> LibreOffice codebase or extend it by localizing it and testing
> LibreOffice.
>
> We knew ever since the beginning that imposing a copyright assignment
> would be a big minus for developers. For one thing, it represents
> complexity for developers, and on the other hand, the experience we had
> with the copyright assignment under the stewardship of Oracle speaks
> for itself. It is also worth noting that in practical terms, the bulk
> of the LibreOffice codebase, that is, everything except our new
> patches, our new code, the localizations, the hacks, etc. is still
> under copyright from Oracle. Also, as a warning of sorts, keep in mind
> that copyright assignments are not the same thing as software licenses.
>
> I am going to write below some of the reasons why I also think that not
> having a copyright assignment is either a good idea or does not really
> matter at all.
>
> 1) no one has yet been able to clearly articulate what advantage we
> would gain by having one for TDF. For instance, it's not at all clear,
> and is in fact quite likely than any major software vendor would be
> shunned away from our project if we had a copyright assignment: it
> would basically mean that we would own their "intellectual property",
> and I'm not so sure it flies well with corporate lawyers in charge of
> protecting it.
>
> 2) the state of the art in terms of such assignments is changing
> rapidly. We stand at a corner of FOSS history, where the realization
> that projects led by one vendor only tend to fail, unless the vendor
> itself puts others in charge of the projects and gives free reins to
> its community. Look at what's happening with Fedora with respect to
> its ditching of copyright assignments. Experiences in other projects
> show that the "protection" that such assignments provide is at best
> minimal, and most of the times quickly abused, most of the time by its
> steward.
>
> 3) copyright assignments are not blocking the reuse of code or
> anything similar; there are several reasons for this, but one which is
> practical: a few years ago, you had a central branch with a tool like
> CVS. In the CVS (and even SVN) there was a real hierarchy. There was my
> branch and you were contributing to it. Now, many projects use similar
> tools, except that they are in fact quite different: they are
> distributed: there are as many different copies as there are
> developers; and the choice is social (people agree on what's best or
> respect the guy who has the biggest beard or something like this). So
> people create a big heap of code, and if they want to create their own
> stuff in their own corner, they do it; they don't deal with
> hierarchies, and paperwork. If they're not happy, they leave. That's
> how it works today. BTW; LibreOffice uses Git, which is a distributed
> SCM.
>
> 4) the notion that we cannot change license because we don't have
> copyright assignment needs to be put to rest once and for all today.
> There is a very simple explanation with respect to this issue; ask any
> lawyer and he/she will confirm this: Sun/Oracle has licensed the OOo
> code under LGPL v3. They could have put "LGPL v3 or later" or "LGPL v3
> or +". But they didn't. And that's what makes impossible to turn OOo
> into a different license unless the sole copyright owner agrees to
> change it, which is unlikely with Oracle.
>
> 5) based on my 4) point, you can object that without a copyright
> assignment, we would be stuck with the same license for ever, since we
> would not be able to decide to change the license of our lines of
> code.  In fact, the problem lies in the heap of code we would have to
> change in order to be able to turn the whole code into something
> else... but here's what the developers of LibreOffice did: they simply
> didn't change the license, they started to license their own changes
> under the same license (LGPL V3)... and added : "or +" after it. So the
> license will change or at least be modified that way. But what if we
> want to change the whole thing? well, we'll contact all the authors who
> got their code into LibreOffice. We have their emails, etc. And if some
> of them don't agree with us, then perhaps we'll have to redevelop their
> own code.
>
> 6) there is also a confusion between copyright assignment and copyright
> protection. True, when you assign code to the FSF, you do expect to be
> legally protected against unpleasant surprises. But developers can also
> decide they don't like the FSF so you will have lost your
> effective control over what you develop. One might object, then, that
> if someone sues you, you would be better off with an entity
> protecting you. Usually, the patent trolls and the suers on code of
> this world don't attack individuals. They attack entities with money.
> On to the money question...
>
> 7) what if we had money to protect our code? Well, we may still not want
> to lose developers for that. But we could do something else: acting as
> the defenders of all the copyright owners. And then, it does not
> require a copyright assignment, it only requires, if a problem arises,
> that enough contributors or all the contributors signs a small paper
> saying "The Document Foundation is representing us legally in xyz case".
> That's all.
>
> Your questions are welcome, but I hope it helped clarified this
> question.
>


I understand not requiring any form of copyright assignment, but what about
voluntary copyright assignment?

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