Seeking input from developers: glibc copyright assignment policy.

[Siddhesh Poyarekar]

On 6/28/21 5:31 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> To flip it around, if I as the second party to that agreement, claim
>> that the agreement means that I am entitled to compensation for my
>> patches or some other ridiculous claim, does that claim have weight?
> 
> On which parts of the document will you base this ridiculous claim?

It was a general question, not specific to the document to get across 
the point that one cannot make generally acceptable claims that way. 
You can trust them if you want, but you need to be aware that they can 
be disputed.

>>>> If I looked at the same article in a different context, it appears to me
>>>> that "use" is distinct enough from "modify, share and sublicense" that
>>>> the latter needs to be spelled out explicitly.
>>>
>>> But they are all allowed, according to the article, so why does it
>>> matter?
>>
>> Because an article is not a legal document.
> 
> Since legal documents rarely change, reasonable interpretation by
> experts is what you have to do with.  It is very strange to hear what
> you say in this case, given that no one else seems to be of the same
> opinion, everyone else interpret this as a grant of unlimited
> nonexclusive rights.  It almost sounds like you don't _want_ the
> language to mean that.

I too have been worried that I'm the only one publicly making this 
interpretation.  This is especially because I too, like you had 
incorrectly assumed that the grant back returned the same unlimited 
rights to me as part of the assignment process; I even retracted that 
upthread after Florian's comment and subsequent reading.

And now that I think of it (and it's pretty much been front and centre 
in my head all weekend), I remember at least one entity I have worked 
with in the past having made this interpretation, specifically with 
respect to the FSF agreement and making sure they worked around it.  I 
did not quite understand it then and assumed it to be paranoia.

To be clear, I don't doubt the FSF's intention with respect to the 
agreement.  I have no reason to believe that they'll misuse the 
assignment not do I have any interest in relicensing code I have 
assigned to the FSF either directly or otherwise.  What I am trying to 
get across however is that there's no canonical interpretation.

Siddhesh