LPC: Michael Meeks on LibreOffice and code ownership

In fact, you could even say that eclectic ownership makes it easier and more effective, because anyone with an interest can pursue action if they decide that's the right course.

Not all contributors will have the same approach to license enforcement; there's such differing views amongst the kernel community (as an example) you could imagine had someone like Linus been in control of the copyright there would have been much less in the way of enforcement.

You're forgetting the FSF, which tends to settle out of court.

<p>I asked specifically for (US) open source case law because, until there is some, the matter is far from definitively settled. I thought maybe there was some I didn't know about.</p>

<p>I know quite competent IP attorneys who believe that the potential plaintiffs in the actions you cite fail to have a sufficient interest in the work in question to have standing. Enforcement of shared copyright in fields other than software has typically required a written agreement among collaborators as to (at least) who has joint ownership.</p>

<p>Since so few open source cases have been tried in the US, it is easy for people to say what the courts would do. In point of fact, nobody knows for sure what they will do until they are actually asked to do something. I think the case history in <i>Jacobsen</i> shows how far wrong our prognosticators can go in the absence of feedback; I don't know of anyone who predicted any of that mess accurately in advance.</p>

<p>Copyright assignment is a pretty blunt tool for assuring standing, and I'm not particularly in favor of it. However, while IANAL, I can see that from an attorney's point of view it would be a pretty attractive way to ensure that courts didn't spring any surprises. Attorneys are mostly payed to reduce risk, so&hellip;</p>