Re: Future code ownership

["Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche at redhat dot com>]

Hi -


On Thu, Dec 19, 2002 at 10:29:12PM +0000, Bart Veer wrote:
> [...]
> Ideally Red Hat would assign to SPI as well, simplifying the whole
> situation. But if they do not, copyright enforcement is still an awful
> lot simpler when there only two copyright holders than when there are
> hundreds.  [...]

I don't know for sure, but this belief sounds like an old wives' tale.
Why is there an impression that an infringement suit can only proceed
if *all* (vs. any) of the infringement victims want it to go ahead?


> The assignment process for a corporate employee also involves a
> disclaimer form that has to be signed by an officer of the company, as
> per the FSF. [...] there would be clear documentation showing that the
> maintainers had acted in good faith and had taken all reasonable
> precautions. [...]

Yes, I'm aware of that.  My point was that you could accept a lower
standard of paperwork (basically the submitter's affirmation, perhaps
in the form of a proposed copyright notice for the new code).  I have
heard of no contrasting outcome for infringement disputes involving
projects that use looser vs. tighter submission paperwork rules.
In other words, such "all reasonable precautions", while likely
sufficient, may not be necessary to protect yourselves.


- FChE

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