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SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

sfconservancy.org

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Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#31

Post by chii »

charcircuit wrote: post #24
thfuran wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can agree to pay someone's legal fees but you can't generally file legal action on their behalf without their involvement. So they could potentially defend the software rights of people who are sufficiently easy to contact and willing to be at least nominally involved in legal proceedings.

They could just send you on email: XYZ is violating your license for project X in their project Y. Do you wish to take action?

and if there's no reply, what happens? You cannot assume the copyright holder is affirmative in this case, and file a suit.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#33

Post by charcircuit »

chii wrote: post #31
charcircuit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could just send you on email: XYZ is violating your license for project X in their project Y. Do you wish to take action?

and if there's no reply, what happens? You cannot assume the copyright holder is affirmative in this case, and file a suit.

Then you wouldn't pursue it.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#34

Post by invokestatic »

onphonenow wrote: post #16

Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL. Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonabl…

> following their failures to force through the GPLv3 such as the EFF

Surely you mean GNU and not EFF.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#35

Post by jen20 »

chii wrote: post #31
charcircuit wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could just send you on email: XYZ is violating your license for project X in their project Y. Do you wish to take action?

and if there's no reply, what happens? You cannot assume the copyright holder is affirmative in this case, and file a suit.

If there’s no reply, there’d be no action.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#36

Post by stefan_ »

onphonenow wrote: post #16

Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL. Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonabl…

It appears to me that this post of yours involves lots of handwaving and appeals to history while the GPL continues to be ignored (look no further than e.g. Tesla).

Where is the hyperbolic let them leverage a very extreme position when some open source project asks for copyright assignment?

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#37

Post by throwaway82652 »

walterbell wrote: post #22
swores wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've linked to an article that is very clearly written in bad faith because it dislikes decisions being taken by the Linux organisation, not because they are actually dumb enough to think that a 3.4% line item for "linux kernel development" means that's all they spend on linux. Urgh.

Could you recommend another article with a better breakdown of Linux spending by LF? It's not exactly a popular or risk-free topic for tech journalists, since many tech companies sponsor LF projects.

You can just look up the Linux Foundation's tax statements, they're publicly available.

Bryan Lunduke's recent writings are a bad source, they consist almost entirely of reactionary trolling. No idea why he gets any readership.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#38

Post by jcranmer »

onphonenow wrote: post #16

Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL. Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonabl…

> "I actually think we should talk about GPL enforcement at the kernel summit, because I think it's an important issue," Torvalds gently began, "but we should talk about it the way we talk about other issues: among kernel developers. No lawyers present unless they are in the capacity of a developer and maintainer of actual code, and in particular, absolutely not the Software Freedom Conservancy." - Linus Torvalds

This is fundamentally a pretty stupid take on the issue, to be honest. I can understand why Linus might want to ignore the SF Conservancy in particular here, but banning all lawyers in general is a stupid idea when you're discussing legal documents (that's what software licenses are). It's akin to saying "let's talk about why our car isn't working but NO CAR MECHANICS ALLOWED."

If what you're talking about is legal issues, you absolutely should involve lawyers, and generally earlier is better. This is particularly true when intellectual property is involved, as neglecting to take certain actions can completely foreclose future legal remedies.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#39

Post by onphonenow »

chii wrote: post #29
onphonenow wrote: post #16

Quick note that the SF Conservancy has been advancing a scary new approach to liability with GPL. Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonabl…

> others attempts to re-write the GPL what does this mean? Is it a rewrite if the interpretation changes? How does one infer what the person granting this license "really meant"? I think it's wrong not to get lawyers involved, because the laymen gets legalese interpretation wrong all the time (and it's an easy mistake to make - "doesn't match what developers understood the GPLv2 to mean at all"). GPL enforcement shou…

Sure, the GPL deal was pretty simple. You can use the code, but if you change it, you need to make the code available with changes also under the GPL. This drove a fair bit of collaboration.

Each developer however could then make whatever they wanted with this code, and the GPL didn't control how you used the code in your project.

So you could make a car, and GPL software based control module could have a rev limiter in it. Others could also build cars using your code, BUT there was no requirement that USERS of your product be able to modify your product to for example get around the rev limiter or whatever.

This was battled out in part via the Tivo case, but was also just the normal readers understanding of the GPL.

This gave rise to the GPLv3 - which has the anti-tivoization clause in it. THAT version does say that you have to provide unlock codes etc etc. This ended up NOT being popular with the folks actually writing code.

What's happened though is that EFF / SFC have started to try and falsely claim that the GPLv2 is also like the GPLv3 - which is ironic because people DIDN'T want the GPLv3 over these issues in part.

https://jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/download/149/269 for an article and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU for Linus's take on the GPLv3 in general.

The latest tactic, because they can't get developers to go down the (A)GPLv3 path is to try and create a right that would allow them to sue everyone as activists even though they didn't write any code themselves. That would then let them put their own interpretations of all of this. I think the SFC is pushing that but I don't follow closely enough.

What is remarkable is just how few developers have gotten on board with this group.

Re: SF Conservancy now accepting copyright assignment for any GPL software

#40

Post by RHSeeger »

charcircuit wrote: post #23
MichaelBurge wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Something untoward" is a bit vague. You have to specify who's being threatened at the very least. * For project maintainers: The SF Conservancy can't prevent developers from working on their own project, because it is GPL-licensed and copyright holders can't retract GPL licensing once it's been given. * For end-users: The GPL is a copyright license, not a EULA. So it only affects developers. * For businesses that di…

>copyright holders can't retract GPL licensing once it's been given This is only true for GPLv3, and not GPLv2.

Do you have any reliable sources for that being the case? Everything I've read, pretty much ever, about the GPLv2 indicates that the version of code released under the GPLv2 is forever available under the GPLv2. You can change the license, but people are always free to use the last version that was released under GPLv2.
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