Re: [gentoo-dev] Re: Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.

[Marius Mauch <genone@gentoo.org>]

Add usual IANAL disclaimer here. All of what I say below is just a
recall of what I remember from discussions that happened a few years
ago.

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:53:10 +0200
Jeroen Roovers <jer@gentoo.org> wrote:

> To be exact, by submitting an ebuild, you actively surrender the
> copyright to the ebuild to the Gentoo Foundation, formerly Gentoo
> Technologies, Inc. [1], the original commit of skel.build (later
> skel.ebuild) already made this very clear:

Only if the ebuild actually includes our copyright header, and even then
is probably questionable in legal terms.

> I remember seeing a less subtle statement to this effect (that the
> copyright to anything you submit to Gentoo's CVS is passed on to
> the Gentoo Project) a long time ago, probably in the devrel/recruiters
> documentation during my own recruitment.

I think you're talking about the copyright assignment doc, which new
devs were required to sign for some time (back when drobbins was still
in charge) and send back to drobbins, but which was pulled because of
serious flaws. Ever since the copyright assignment issue has been
something the foundation/board of trustees should have take care of
(one of the reasons we needed the lawyers), with no result so far.

> Sadly, currently no document on www.gentoo.org explains the judicial
> better than [3], which has this:
> 
> "The bureaucracy we mention includes:
> 
> [...]
> 
> -     juridical protection: backing up the licenses Gentoo uses,
>       maintaining the copyrights on Gentoo's software, documentation
> and other assets and protecting Gentoo's intellectual property"
> 
> and also:
> 
> "In other words, the Gentoo Foundation will:
> 
> [...]
> 
> -     protect the developed code, documentation, artwork and other
>       material through copyright and licenses"

Which isn't really related, as we can only protect what we own.

> Therefore, the copyright to an ebuild is or should be actively and
> simply turned over to the Gentoo Foundation by the developer, and this
> should be made policy and should be explained properly in a few places
> in our documentation.
> 
> Should I file a documentation bug about this?

Well, documention won't help to resolve the legal questions about this
(what exactly is necessary to assign copyright from a person to the
foundation), and that's the main problem IMO.

Marius

-- 
Marius Mauch <genone@gentoo.org>
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