[TOS] contributors' agreements

MJ Ray mjr at phonecoop.coop
Mon Dec 7 14:19:09 UTC 2009


Ross Gardler wrote:
> 2009/12/5 Behdad Esfahbod <behdad at behdad.org>:
> > On 12/05/2009 03:32 PM, Ross Gardler wrote:
> >> CLAs are not about assignment of copyright form one party to another.
> >
> > Let me correct you: they are not *necessarily* about copyright assignment.
> >  In real world however, more often than not, they are.
> 
> Your addition of the world "necessarily" is correct.
> 
> But I do not agree with your assertion:
> ASF, Mozilla, FSF, Eclipse, Plone, Python, Subversion, Debian, Ubuntu
> and Linux (for example) do not require copyright assignment.

FSF's position is at
http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Papers.html#Copyright-Papers
and looks to me like it requires either assignment or disclamation.

So, while technically accurate to say FSF doesn't require assignment,
there seems no choice for contributors to retain their copyright,
which I think is why some actually detest copyright assignment.

There's also a special sub-problem for those in Common Ownership
organisations (so-called Asset-Locked or anti-carpetbagged groups),
because their assets should not be distributed except to another CO
org.  A similar variation applies in some countries where natural
persons cannot assign some of their rights, as I understand it.

Return-to-author licensing agreements seem much better, such as the
FSFE-developed FLA.  If a project is undecided or unknowing, is it a
good idea to suggest they take a look at the FLA?
http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/fla.en.html

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)  Webmaster and LMS developer at     | software
www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        |  .... co
IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html |  .... op



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