Seeking input from developers: glibc copyright assignment policy.

[Florian Weimer]

* Bradley M. Kuhn:

> Nevertheless, I feel much of this discussion is missing a few of the key
> nuances that are highly relevant to ending the copyright assignment mandate.
> Most importantly, the current proposal does not make recommendations on what
> developers should do (and/or how they should organize) to assure that they
> will ultimately keep their own copyrights when the existing copyright
> assignment legal infrastructure starts to atrophy after the policy change.
> By default, most copyrights revert to the employer when you contribute to a
> codebase as part of your job.

I think in the context of glibc, with copyright assignment to the FSF,
this does not strike me as particularly relevant, given where we are
today.

The current version of the GPL explicitly exempts workers from copyleft
protection, so that they do not enjoy any software freedoms at all:

| You may convey covered works to others for the sole purpose of having
| them make modifications exclusively for you, or provide you with
| facilities for running those works, provided that you comply with the
| terms of this License in conveying all material for which you do not
| control copyright.  Those thus making or running the covered works for
| you must do so exclusively on your behalf, under your direction and
| control, on terms that prohibit them from making any copies of your
| copyrighted material outside their relationship with you.

Version 2 of the GPL does not have comparable language, so the situation
was much more murky there.

Consequently, I don't think that for those of us who are concerned about
workers' rights, employers bypassing copyleft, and such like, the FSF is
the right organization to assign copyrights to.

Thanks,
Florian