A bit of a mountain out of a molehill, I think.

Posted Mar 21, 2013 13:53 UTC (Thu) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]

Jon Corbet wrote:

how about the simple case where you want to own the copyright to your own code?

Then don't sign the copyright assignment form in the first place, and cancel it if you change your mind.

"I wouldn't want the FSF to claim ownership of code I never intended to submit to it" is such a hard thing to understand?

This is the question that RMS said himself needed further study. I can't speak for him — nor am I privy to any internal FSF discussions on this issue at this point — but I'd suspect that FSF would want to figure out a way to be flexible if possible. Indeed, I am privy to many discussions inside FSF that have been ongoing about trying to be more accommodating to the needs of contributors to FSF-copyrighted projects. However, these questions and issues are complex, FSF is a small and underfunded org with a very small staff, and therefore FSF can't change complex, time-honored policies quickly like a wealthy, for-profit company could with lots of resources to hire a team of lawyers to study complex legal questions. Most of FSF's lawyers, by contrast, are pro-bono and don't always have time to spare to give advice.