Seeking input from developers: glibc copyright assignment policy.

[Phil Blundell]

On Mon, Jun 28, 2021 at 06:36:21PM +0530, Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:
> I too have been worried that I'm the only one publicly making this
> interpretation.

Just to jump in on that particular point, I don't think you should assume
that everybody else is firmly wedded to the opposite interpretation.  My
own view on that is that the situation is ambiguous and I suspect we will
never find out for sure until/unless someone ends up litigating the point 
and a court has to render an opinion.

But equally, I am not too bothered about it because the answer doesn't
seem to be directly germane to the point at hand.  Personally I have 
already signed an "all future changes" assignment to the FSF in respect 
of my changes to glibc and, although it's probably true that my opinion 
of the FSF as an organisation has shifted slightly in the quarter of a 
century since I originally signed the paperwork, I'm not sufficiently 
exercised about the situation to consider trying to change anything.

Even for new contributors I'm not sure that the requirement to assign
copyright to the FSF represents a huge barrier in itself.  I haven't
noticed a large number of would-be contributors mention that as something
that's a deal-breaker for them.  What *does* seem to be an issue in
practice is the associated requirement to get your employer / university
to disclaim their own interest in the changes and I have the impression
that this is where the majority of people who get stuck come to grief.

I think it's already been noted that glibc already contains code which
belongs to multiple copyright holders and there doesn't seem to be any
realistic prospect of relicensing the whole library regardless of what
happens with future contributions.  

So, as far as I can tell, the debate really seems to boil down to the 
risk of a DCO'd submission later turning out to include a copyright bomb 
if some organisation or individual were to come out of the woodwork and 
assert ownership of it.  And more specifically, whether we as a project
feel that this increased risk is justified by the removal of a roadblock
to future contributors.

My own view is that the risk, although not zero, is still small enough
to be tolerable and it would be outweighed by the benefit of not seeming
to throw obstacles in the way of would-be contributors.

I'm not sure that discussing the finer nuances of exactly what rights the
FSF does or doesn't grant back as part of a copyright assignment really
moves us any further forward.  Any would-be contributor for whom that's
an issue is going to have to make their own mind up about it anyway
irrespective of what consensus we reach here about the "correct" reading
of the license text.

p.