----- Original Message ---- > From: Thorsten Behrens <[email protected]> > Gianluca Turconi wrote: > > I've already suggested that if the copyright assignment is > > considered a too heavy burden, it should be asked to the contributor > > at least a statement that clearly affirms his/her absolute copyright > > rights for the contribution (nobody else can claim nothing about the > > contribution) and includes a indemnity clause ("clausola di manleva" > > in my language) in the unlucky case what he/she stated it isn't true > > and somebody else has valid legal rights for the contribution. > > > > A "no signature involved, whatsoever" approach is just too risky, IMO. > > > Hi Gianluca, > > I respect your opinion - alas, I have a different one. For your > specific example, if someone submits code to LibO, stating in her > mail "I license this under LGPLv3+ / MPL", and that later turns out > to be false pretense, that gives you about as much leverage against > the contributor as if she signs extra documents (at least for all > practical matters. Sure, you can include huge damages in that legal > document - but would have to extract it, from a potential > independent contributor, in the first place). Sueing your > contributor, in any way, is most likely the lesser of your worries > in such cases... ;) > > > Of course, distributors *can* risk if they want. > > > And they do. Large portions of the typical Linux stack are developed > in this, or comparable, ways. >
The majority of open source software is developed in that manner. Only the large formalized organizations do anything different. And while IANAL, each individual contribution would probably be governed by the laws not of where the distributor resides, but of where the contributor resides unless the license states otherwise. FSF licenses (GPL, LGPL, etc) do not presently state a specific jurisdiction last I was aware. If the laws where the distributor resides does not allow that model, then the distributor better move to somewhere that does, or cease distribution when that model is employed. This again goes back to what kind of community do you want? Do you want a true F/OSS community that is based on trust? Or do you want a bureaucratic community based on dis-trust? If you are contemplating the need for suing your contributors then you are already in the bureaucratic community landscape. And if you were to sue a contributor (for any reason) consider what the community response may be - if they agree, they'll get behind you; if not, they'll leave in droves. $0.02 Ben -- Unsubscribe instructions: Email to [email protected] Posting guidelines: http://netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html Archive: http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/discuss/ *** All posts to this list are publicly archived ***
