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A bit of a mountain out of a molehill, I think.A bit of a mountain out of a molehill, I think.Posted Mar 20, 2013 12:47 UTC (Wed) by corbet (editor, #1)In reply to: A bit of a mountain out of a molehill, I think. by bkuhn Parent article: When does the FSF own your code? Bradley, how about the simple case where you want to own the copyright to your own code? Or what if you want to contribute it to a different project which also requires copyright assignment? I don't get why "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? As for why I used this example, that is easy: because it was there and easy to understand. Even a gadfly might raise an interesting issue.
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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.
Cancellation of Assignment and FSF making unfair claims Posted Apr 18, 2013 16:25 UTC (Thu) by kjambunathan (guest, #90456) [Link]
I am the protagonist (or villain) referred to in this article.
FYI, I have cancelled my future assignment to Emacs to make sure that the said changes do not end up in Emacs.
Inspite of my cancellation, I have received communication from Richard Stallman and Stefan Monnier that they are going ahead with the merge of my changes. This, by implication, means that FSF is claiming that I have assigned rights to said changes, when ,in fact, I am unwilling to assign the rights to FSF.
I am little bit surprised by FSF's position here. I find the FSF position not accommodating to contributor's wishes as you claim.
My assignment contract clearly says that I can report to FSF on my own initiative changes that are covered (and by extension "not covered") by the said contract. Here is the relevant quote from my future assignment.
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By pushing ahead with a decision to merge my changes inspite of my cancellation of assignment, FSF is not honoring the item (see above) in it's own contract.
Also by merging my (unassigned) changes to Emacs, is in violation of project policy of Emacs.
IMNSHO, FSF by snatching away my changes against my wishes, is behaving like a pick-pocket or a petty thief.
ps: Why are the Emacs or Orgmode maintainers not dropping my changes and rolling out their own. Have they really forgotten the hacker ethic started becoming smug?
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