On Sat, 2016-05-28 at 17:50 +0000, Seb via Digitalmars-d wrote: > One thing that confused me a lot in the beginning, is that every > Phobos module has it's own copyright - I am not a lawyer, but it > sounded for me pretty weird that in theory I could get sued by a > lot of Oracle-like patent trolls. > I imagine the same effect also for companies when they read a > different copyright on every module in Phobos.
I am not sure of the situation with GDC since the GCC folk are involved with that – Iain may be able to take a view on this. Also I am not totally sure of the LDC situation. However I think it would be a very good idea if DMD, LDC, GDC, Phobos, druntime, and Dub and the repository were all copyright the D Foundation, and that all contributions had a copyright share or transfer. Contribution agreements are notoriously complicated, cf. the situation over the Canonical one. However, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there is lawyer with licence to operate in the jurisdiction that the D Foundation is incorporated in who could draw up a suitable copyright share/transfer agreement that can be digitally signed. This agreement would then be required for any new contributions. Dealing with retrospective can be difficult but not impossible. Contribution agreements sometimes cause a lot of grief, cf. the original Gradle one as well as the aforementioned Canonical one. However, it can be done and to great effect. The benefit of getting over the problems so as to allow all ownership to at least include D Foundation is unquantifiable per se, but anecdotally is very great. Having a clear central owner of a technology gives organizations confidence that the technology is not going away. I know D has been around over a decade and isn't going away, but organizations (and their lawyers) do not think that way. They want a clear central organization as owner with responsibility. I have seen this with Apache Groovy and SCons over the years. -- Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder t: +44 20 7585 2200 voip: sip:[email protected] 41 Buckmaster Road m: +44 7770 465 077 xmpp: [email protected] London SW11 1EN, UK w: www.russel.org.uk skype: russel_winder
signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part
