Aaron Boxer <[email protected]> writes: > I am trying to learn more about how open source projects manage > copyright of contributors. I see that various GDAL files have > different copyright assignees, although they all use the MIT license.
(I'm not trying to counter anything Evan said; he is not only an authoritative speaker but IMHO said everythign totally right. I am the chief licensing geek in pkgsrc, a multi-OS multi-arch packaging system. This is more than what you asked, but hopefully useful background.) As always, IANAL, TINLA. And this is a US-centric view, although I think not so far off for Europe and many other Berne Convention countries. You said "different assignees". I think you meant "different copyright holders". When a person creates a work (writes code, in nerd-speak), the basic consequence is that they hold copyright, and there is no assignment involved. If the code is written within the scope of employment, then the copyright will be held by the employer, under the "work for hire" doctrine. Beyond that ownership at creation, copyright can be assigned by a contract from the original holder to a new holder. (As an exception, Europe has the concept of "moral rights" as an element of copyright which cannot be assigned, but this has so far not been a significant issue in software.) Some open source projects ask that copyright be assigned to some entity (e.g., emacs asks for an assignment to FSF, and will not merge code until that is done). Others have a very large number of copyright holders. As a packager, I don't care how many copyright holders there are. What I look for is a clear license, since without a license, there is no permission to copy or to create derivative works. The common practice of "inbound = outbound", where contributions are only accepted if there is a license grant equal to the project's outgoing license, both works well and fits very well with most people's senses of fairness and reciprocity. As a contributor, I am happy when I get to keep copyright, not because I really want to keep it, but because it is easy and does not require signing something, which usually has additional terms I may not like (e.g., indemnification). I do not object conceptually to assigning to a 501(c)3 organization that has promotion of Free Software as a fundamental goal (e.g. FSF, SFC, ASF). I am not comfortable assiging to a company, and object unless the assignment guarantees that the code will *only* be distributed by them under Free licenses. Greg, lurker
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