Subject: Re: copyright assignment
From: [email-masked] (Geoffrey Noer)

27 May 1998 00:25:12 -0700
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To: Larry Meadows <[email-masked]>, [email-masked]

On Fri, May 22, 1998 at 09:11:18AM -0700, Larry Meadows wrote:
> 
> That's very interesting, actually. The GPL says that if I distribute
> modified binaries, then I must also make the modified source code
> available. But you're saying that I also need to send a copyright
> assignment form and a disclaimer with this modified source code?
> 
> Doesn't seem quite right to me... by modifying the source code I
> already agreed that I had no copyright, by virtue of the GPL.

I think you are confusing two very different things:

1) copyright ownership (who owns the intellectual property)
2) what license the copyright owner places the code under

The GPL requires you to license modifications under the GPL, but
you are the copyright owner unless you sign forms to make another
party the owner (such as the FSF or Cygnus).

Here's a possible chain of events we would rather avoid:

1) You contribute some extremely useful infrastructure changes to
Cygwin32 which we accept and integrate.
2) For a few months, various people continue to build upon your
changes.
3) Your computer industry employer finds out that you contributed
code to the project and sues Cygnus on the basis that they own your
contribution as a result of your employment agreement with them (i.e.
that you didn't have the right to contribute the code in the first
place).
4) We are forced to sink a ton of money into a lawsuit and
lose several months work on Cygwin32 as we undo all changes pertaining
to your contribution.

Here's how the disclaimer and assignment forms change things:

1) The disclaimer from your employer prevents them from claiming
your changes as theirs.
2) The assignment form prevents you from claiming that you never
intended to contribute the changes, or that the license was something
other than one we can use.

Note that for similar reasons, we refuse contributions marked as
"public domain" since there's no paperwork to prove that the
contributor had the right to place the changes into the public domain.
For that matter, we would have no evidence that we didn't steal the
code, marking "public domain" at the top.

Although I'm sure legal troubles over this sort of thing only happen
very rarely, life would become pretty grim if they did.  Fortunately
the assignment form and disclaimer are pretty easy to fill out.  As
far as I know, they haven't actually stopped any real contributions.

> I can see the desire for such a thing, but it seems to discourage
> people from contributing patches and seems unnecessary.

OTOH, as I have hopefully explained, it does encourage us to accept
patches.  :-)

In any case, I hope this helps clear up the purpose of the assignment
forms and disclaimers.  Unfortunately, they're a necessary evil.

Regards,

Geoffrey Noer
[email-masked]
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