"You wish to asign copyright to Gentoo Technologies, In

Jeedo

When i fired up "mkebuild" today it gave me that message among others. Asking about it in #Gentoo gave me the answeres from a cauple of devs that if you submit code to Gentoo Tech, Inc. you effectively assign copyright over to Gentoo, apperently this is for my and others own protection (like for example if someone would use code from gentoo in a none-gpl project Gentoo could sue, which is couldnt if it didnt have the copyright to that code.)

aja · Posted: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:49 pm Post subject:

The GPL (and nearly all similar Open Source licenses) cannot be enforced by anyone but the copyright-holder. Consequently, it is quite reasonable to require that a large project centralize copyright assignment.

I don't think it is particularly odd that they haven't gotten around to creating some sort of formal agreement - this form of copyright assignment is not a quid-pro-quo contract where gentoo developers are assigning proprietary code in return for some sort of consideration - the code in question is GPL'd, so the developers are really only turning over responsibility and authority for enforcing the GPL to Gentoo.

aethyr · Veteran Joined: 06 Apr 2003 Posts: 1085 Location: NYC

It's an ebuild.

Seriously, what are you going to do with a bash script that installs a piece of software, of which 10000 some scripts already exist, that is even worth copyrighting?

I mean if you rewrote portage that's one thing, but creating an ebuild, I fail to see how that's worth worrying about.

trinitrotoluene · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 19 Jul 2003 Posts: 113

I believe it is the same way for software submitted to the FSF and many others.
_________________
"The quickest way to a girl's bed is through her parents. Have sex with them and you're in." -- Zapp Brannigan

idl · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:24 am Post subject:

When commiting user created ebuilds, we check for their own copyright (some do add them) and inform them the ebuild cannot be submited if they own the copyright.

Imagine the mess if users started claiming copyright on their X number of ebuilds in portage. As its often said (although not written) writing ebuilds and posting them on bugzilla is considered a contribution to the project. At that point owner ship is transfered to Gentoo and maintainership to the developer.

Pythonhead · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:34 am Post subject:

Daniel Robbins actually approved people using their own copyright messages about a month ago.

From the developer mailing list:

avenj · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 6:11 am Post subject:

Actually, Daniel said it was okay before learning that it was actually very bad for us, as I and others had originally pointed out.

Instead, there's a document in progress that is basically a contract stating "you assign copyright to us, and in return we promise we'll never relicense it under anything but the GPL"

Ebuilds are very marginally copyrightable to begin with; if you really think we're going to somehow subvert your contribution, don't contribute it.

Jeedo · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:59 pm Post subject:

Thanks for some great answers guys. I wasnt agains this at all really, i was just sceptic and wanted to know why it was being done thats all.

Anyway thanks for clearing that up.[/list]

hbmartin · Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 4:22 pm Post subject:

I'd be interested to see what RMS replied to Daniel.

Harold