When does the FSF own your code?

When does the FSF own your code?

Posted Mar 20, 2013 3:13 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
In reply to: When does the FSF own your code? by alvieboy
Parent article: When does the FSF own your code?

I think that you are confused. The only freedom at risk here is the alleged freedom of a developer to take back code that he already promised to give, just to be a jerk (he openly admits that he wants to make life worse for other developers).

In countries that separate moral rights from economic rights, the FSF transfer agreement transfers only the latter, and furthermore they grant back the code to the author, so he/she can still use that code in a proprietary app or whatever. But your misunderstanding of what is going on has evidently led you to believe that there is some monstrous abuse taking place, though you don't seem to be clear on what that is.

This is hardly a unique situation: if you publish a paper in a scientific journal, with very rare restrictions you are forced to sign a grant of rights that is far less friendly to the author than the FSF's terms are.

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