Re: [ECOS] EB40A port is done!

[Peter Vandenabeele <peter at mind dot be>]

On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 05:50:14PM -0700, David N. Welton wrote:
> Doug Fraser <dfraser@photuris.com> writes:
> 
> > Even if you contribute directly to www.gnu.org you need to perform a
> > copywrite assignment and possibly provide a disclaimer signed by
> > your employer.
> 
> > http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain_7.html#SEC7
> 
> > So, no, simply having GPL'ed the code does not absolve the
> > maintainer from this responsibility. Having non-assigned copywrites
> > poisons GPL'ed code.
> 
> Well, things like Linux are probably defensible, despite having lots
> of 'poisoned' code.  The bigger problem, maybe, for an organization
> like GNU, is the possibility of changing the copyright in the future.

David,
Doug,

With all respect, I believe this to be incorrect.  The fundamental 
"fairness" of GPL consists of the fact that anyone who contributes source 
code to a GPL project, knows exactly what the rules are for that project 
and trusts the symmetry: "If I contribute my source now, others will have 
to contribute it too, later, when they start distributing an executable."

Giving the opportunity to a specific organization to bend the rules at
a later time (which is of the reasons why a number of organizations that 
manage Open Source projects request Copyright Assignment to them), moves 
that trust from trust in a fixed inalienable license on paper, to trust 
in the future behavior (let alone existence) of that organization.

I believe this is the reason why GPL works: the license (that is 
comprehensible for anyone that takes the time to study it) is implicit
in the project and is the contract that enforces the fairness and 
symmetry, instead of an organization that could always change its mind.
(Obviusly, it becomes painfull when Software Patents are used as
a "Deus ex machina" to overrule that fairness and still limit the
free use of a piece of GPL code that was submitted earlier in good
trust by a number of developers.)

Other models with mixed licenses are possible. Typically this is a 
combination of a dual license (TrollTech) or quad license (Mozilla) 
or other special licenses (bitkeeper) with Copyright Assignment to a 
commercial entity. There you want to have a central company pushing a 
project harder (with the cash it gets from selling commercial (non GPL) 
licenses and/or from selling support) than would be the case it it were 
a straight GPL project. May I assume Cygnus/Redhat was the organisation 
pushing eCos in this manner ?

I have the impression this concept (of a mixed license and push by
a central commercial entity) works in certain cases and is defendable 
if implemented in a "fair" manner, with a correct balance between the 
interests of the Free Software community and of the commercial entity.

One of the elements of such balance seems to me that contributors that
are not associated with the central, maintaining organization need to
have the right to set up at any time a separate CVS server where they 
can submit patches and build a forked version, in case they do not agree 
with the policy set forward by the central maintaining organization 
(especially if that organization would request Copyright Assignment as 
a pre-condition for allowing the patch in the central CVS server). 

Sincerely,

Peter Vandenabeele
peter@mind.be

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