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For further messages in this thread, please keep: |
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Reply-To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o, gentoo-nfp@l.g.o |
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On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 08:08:45PM -0800, Greg KH wrote: |
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> On Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 02:32:25AM +0000, Robin H. Johnson wrote: |
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> > On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 01:16:25PM -0800, Greg KH wrote: |
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> > > On a personal note, if any copyright assignment was in place, I would |
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> > > never have been able to become a Gentoo developer, and if it were to be |
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> > > put into place, I do not think that I would be allowed to continue to be |
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> > > one. I'm sure lots of other current developers are in this same |
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> > > situation, so please keep that in mind when reviewing this process. |
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> > This is a question for gregkh primarily, but I would also like to extend |
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> > it to all other Gentoo developers. |
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> > |
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> > 1. Are you party to any *copyright assignment* (eg FSF copyright assignment)? |
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> You need to rephrase this to be (in order for it to make any sense): |
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> Are you party to any *copyright assignment* that is not part of your |
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> employment agreement? |
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No, copyright assignments from your employment agreement are a valid |
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answer to question #1. |
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|
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If I wanted to improve the wording (I was trying to keep the list of |
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questions as short as possible), I could have broken it down into: |
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1.1. Are you party to any explicit *copyright assignment* in your |
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employment agreement? |
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1.2. Are you party to any other *copyright assignment*? |
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|
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But I don't need that level of detail, I just wanted to know a simple |
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YES/NO, if they were party to any copyright assignment. |
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|
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> Otherwise, everyone in the US, and most other countries, would almost |
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> always have to just say "yes" to this, as their employer owns the |
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> copyright for their work no matter what it is done on (open source or |
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> not.) |
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I'm not party to any of them - none of my employment contracts in the |
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past decade have included them. Several have actually had explicit |
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claims to say that my employer or company I'm doing consulting for does |
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explicitly does NOT obtain the copyright of anything I work on - I've |
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open-sourced practically all of my work in this time. |
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http://git.isohunt.com/gitweb/ |
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http://git.sitka.bclibraries.ca/gitweb/ |
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(not a complete list, because it doesn't include patches I've sent off |
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to other projects) |
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|
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There is more work with open-source licenses, not yet released, but I |
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hope to get to those in future. |
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|
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> Remember, in the US, individuals who actually own the copyright on the |
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> work they do is quite rare once they get out of college, and even then, |
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> while in college, the school does have the right to assert copyright |
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> ownership of the work, depending on what it was done on/for (who |
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> provided the equipment, tasks, etc.) |
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That's why the question was very general. |
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|
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> > 2. Are you party to any *contributor license agreements* (eg FLA, Google CLA, ...)? [2] |
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> > 3. Are you party to any other *license assertions* (eg DCO)? [3] |
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> > 4. Are you party to or aware of any other copyright aggregation efforts? [4] |
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> Note also, anyone who works for any company, might not be allowed to |
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> answer some of these questions, and, might not want to (i.e. the |
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> employer is requiring the person to do the work on a specific project, |
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> despite the fact that the developer doesn't like the copyright |
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> assignment rules for it.) |
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I don't want the specifics, just a yes or no. A "I cannot answer this |
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for contractual reasons" is a very useful red flag as well. |
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|
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For yourself, I'm fairly certain you are party to DCO's per #3, because |
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you send in work to the kernel with Signed-off-by lines. I don't know |
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about your employment contracts, and I was hoping to get that piece of |
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clarification. |
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|
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> I think you want to rephrase this as asking what types of projects, from |
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> a copyright assignment basis, do people contribute to, on their own |
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> time. But even then, you will run into problems with corporate |
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> restrictions. |
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> |
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> Hm, this is a mess. What are you trying to find out here? What type of |
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> projects to people work on based on the copyright assignment rules? Or |
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> something else? |
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As one of the Foundation trustees, I wanted a rough survey of how |
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copyright is handled in other employment and projects for a |
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(self-selecting) sample of developers. I don't care what the work or |
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projects are - just how it breaks down. |
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|
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=== |
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$W devs are aware/party other copyright aggregation efforts. |
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Number of developers already party to: |
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copyright assignment - $X devs |
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CLAs - $Y devs |
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other license assertions - $Z devs |
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=== |
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(plus looking at useful overlaps). |
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|
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Project Harmony was a very interesting effort, and relevant to our |
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efforts at examining copyright handling in Gentoo, but not without |
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many problems. Bradley M. Kuhn expounded on it best |
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http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/07/07/harmony-harmful.html |
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See also teh GNOME Copyright Assignment Guidelines: |
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https://live.gnome.org/CopyrightAssignment/Guidelines1G |
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|
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead |
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E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
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GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85 |