Clarification [LWN.net]

Clarification

Posted May 20, 2004 16:48 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065)
Parent article: News from the SCO front

"The FSF is right to emphasize the importance of ensuring that stolen code
is not merged into free software projects..."

I don't see the FSF doing any such thing. I'm sure they do take steps to
avoid this, including an copyright waiver from employers, plus the copyright
assignments with relatively detailed scopes. But that is at best implying
they ensure "stolen code" (sounds like a SCO catchphrase) is screened out.

There's really nothing any project, whether run by a company or individual,
open or closed, can do to make sure this doesn't happen unless you have
watchers for each programmer. At some point it has to come down to trust.

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Clarification

Posted May 20, 2004 18:56 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

The FSF goes further. They require indemnification. That means that if you sign the forms to contribute code to the FSF, and you know it's someone else's code, you pay any damages that the FSF might have to pay, at least until you're bankrupt. That's a legal protection Linus does not have.

FSF and stolen code

Posted May 22, 2004 18:58 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

The GNU Project's (FSF) process makes it a whole lot less likely that GNU Bash contains stolen code than that the Linux kernel does, but I agree it doesn't eliminate the problem completely. There's still the problem of the contributor who deliberately or mistakenly claims he owns the rights to contributed code when he really doesn't.

In that case, the GNU indemnification requirement is barely meaningful. It doesn't protect a user of Bash. Under copyright law, a user of Bash can be liable for royalties to the actual copyright owner of the code. That could be, for example, the guy from whom that contributor copied it, or the guy for whom he wrote it for hire.