Mail Archives: cygwin/2006/08/14/06:25:03
Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> On Aug 14 08:10, Darryl Miles wrote:
>> I am actively working on a solution, but at current work rate it maybe a
>> few weeks to a month before any preliminary patch will be posted here.
>
> Please don't forget the "Before you get started" drill as descibed
> on http://cygwin.com/contrib.html
I take it that you were hinting at the copyright assignment.
I do have questions, they may seem daft, but this issue is legal thing
so the finer points are important:
Does the CYGWIN copyright assignment only affect contributions I
specifically earmark to fall under its jurisdiction. i.e. I am
confirming it has no jurisdiction over any previous or future work for
which I am the copyright holder be it related to cygwin or not. Also
that in order the the assignment to be enforceable I must explicitly
earmark the data covered by it by acknowledging the assignment agreement
at the time I make the contribution official. If this explicit
statement is not given then there is no way legally it can be implied by
any other means. i.e. just posting something to a list relating to
CYGWIN does not make the code fall under the jurisdiction of the
copyright assignment agreement.
Is this agreement considered copyright assignment or partnership ? That
is am I loosing my original copyright entitlement to the work. I am
happy to assign dual (or additional copyright holdership to the named
party under the agreement) but I am much less happy about loosing the
original copyrights I once had in that process.
Lets suppose I introduce a new function call, this function could be
considered an complete entity that is copyrightable since it was all my
original work. But since I originally created it I wish to keep a
version that is recognized legally where I am the only copyright holder,
as well as have the version which has dual copyright holdership for use
inside CYGWIN.
My last question is to do with international jurisdiction, maybe
international copyright law is universal across all territories. But I
doubt it! Since I am from the UK I have more faith in our legal system
than say the USAs.
I understand how the agreement protects RedHat (a for profit
organization what has made extensive contributions to CYGWIN), but these
questions come from the standpoint that a contributor should not be
loosing anything in the process of contributing. This should be a legal
win-win situation in the spirit of open source.
I'd be happy to put the bugfixes for this particular problem in the
public domain, thus confirming my original legal entitlement to
copyright and waivering that right. Which would may waiver anyone elses
future rights to copyright as well. This would seem a compatible
solution which would allow contributions without needing to enter into a
copyright assignment agreement. Since my name wont be listed anywhere
on the published work (since as I read the agreement it would be
replaced by RedHats anyway) I might as well make the contribution public
domain.
I do not have any accountable employer but this standpoint in life does
put me in the position to automatically question any new legally binding
agreement I enter into. I must justify to myself its necessity, its
scope and future liabilities.
Also if I understand correctly the GPL does not remove the original
copyright entitlement to the work and again I'd be happy to make
contributions available under GPL.
So are there any alternative options to contribute for those not wishing
to enter into a commercial legal agreement with a profit generating
organization in order to contribute to an (almost-)open source project ?
Darryl
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