[gentoo-nfp] Soliciting Feedback: Gentoo Copyright Assignments / Licensing

[Rich Freeman]

Announcing once to -dev-announce due to the general importance of this
topic to the community, but ALL replies should go to -nfp, or to
trustees@ if you must, or to /dev/null if you shouldn't.

Before I start, yes, the trustees realize that there are legal issues
around copyright assignment in general, and that various workaround
exist and may or may not work, such as various contributor licensing
agreements that are used by various organizations, especially in
Europe.  The purpose of this thread isn't really to debate this topic,
as it might be moot in any case.

The question we would like to get feedback from the Gentoo community
on is this: is copyright assignment (or something like it) something
Gentoo should even be pursuing, and if so, to what degree?  Should we
turn away contributions where assignments are not made?  Should we aim
for a voluntary but encouraged approach as used by KDE e.V.?  Should
we pursue this for some Gentoo projects but not others (such as for
portage (the package manager), and perhaps eclass code, but not
ebuilds)?

Set aside the mechanics of how this would be accomplished for now.  I
don't think that this is likely to be the source of any great
controversy, though if we pursue this we will no doubt solicit
comments on any proposals.  Likewise, set aside any issues pertaining
to history of what the status quo actually is.  The larger issue is
where Gentoo wants to be with regard to "ownership" (or whatever the
appropriate term is) of its code.  Where we are going is more
important than how we get there.

The main arguments for owning copyright of something would be:
1.  Legal simplicity
2.  Ability to re-license (obviously in accordance with the social
contract, and this could even be enforced with a model like the FSFe's
FLA)
3.  Standing to pursue copyleft license violations

The main arguments for not owning copyright of something would be:
1.  Some potential contributors might refuse to contribute
2.  Ability to merge license-compatible code without needing the
cooperation of its author

There are numerous details to be worked out either way, and we don't
need to settle those in advance.

Feedback from any member of the Gentoo community (loosely defined) is
welcome.  If anybody has STRONG feelings on this matter, please be
sure to voice them either in public or in private, as I can't
guarantee that there will be another opportunity to do so.

For those wondering where this is going:  Right now the Foundation is
soliciting info from other organizations and will be soliciting legal
advice regarding how we might implement whatever course of action we
choose to take.  If community consensus seems to be obvious in the
replies to this email we may very well form concrete proposals and put
them out for comment before enacting new policy.  If consensus is not
clear we may seek further input in the form of binding or non-binding
votes from the Foundation membership.  Obviously our goal isn't to
stir up a hornet's nest, so assume that the Trustees will use
reasonable discretion.

For the Trustees (who are welcome to chime in with any
questions/nuances I missed),

Richard Freeman