Re: [ECOS] Copyright assignment

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl at eCosCentric dot com>]

Eric Doenges wrote:
> Nick Garnett wrote:
> > I would very much like to see your driver committed to the repository
> > and this is the only sticking point.  Maybe you are just going to have
> > to resubmit the forms to Red Hat. However, we have also been
> > discussing alternative approaches to assignments in the maintainers
> > list. Maybe your driver can be the trailblazer for the new mechanism.

The new mechanism has been agreed in principle. All that remains is coming 
up with some satisfactory wording for the public declaration bit (if you 
remember that).

> Personally, I don't really care who I assign the copyright to - I just
> think it is a sad state of affairs that getting the legal work done
> takes much more time and is much more aggravating than writing the code
> all the fuss is about. However, before I can assign the copyright to
> anyone else I have to know what happened to my original copyright
> assignment, since I can hardly assign it to anyone with the prior
> assignment to RedHat floating around somewhere.

Write a dated letter saying you withdraw your assignment request. Unless 
they can present you an assignment contract (and the terms of assignment 
say they must return a counter-signed one to you) signed and dated by them 
prior to that letter, then your letter takes precedence. Until it is 
counter-signed it has no legal force. Sorry for the hassle, but 
unfortunately we aren't responsible for Red Hat, and we have been making 
efforts to change the situation, but the FSF legal department is also 
quite distracted at the moment with the SCO stuff I guess :-|.

We should be able to put in a temporary "fix" shortly at least as Nick 
said. The decision on this was only taken earlier in the week.

Jifl
--
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
--["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine


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