Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 22, 2006 19:59 UTC (Fri) by ajross (guest, #4563)
In reply to: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3 by sp.at
Parent article: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

However, we also take note of the fact that the FSF operates very differently from Linux in that it requires assignment of copyright from each and every one of the thousands of contributors to its code base.
This is plain wrong. The FSF does at NO POINT require you to assign copyright to them. It is more of an option to whoever applies for his project to become part of GNU.

It looks correct to me. The FSF requires copyright assignment for all code submissions to the GNU project.

I think you misinterpreted the text as indicating that the FSF requires all GPLed code to be assigned, which is of course incorrect. The phrase "its code base" clearly refers to GNU, not all the GPLv2 code in the world.

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Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 22, 2006 21:07 UTC (Fri) by quintesse (guest, #14569) [Link] (2 responses)

Uhm no, it very specifically says:

"For a program to be GNU software does not require transferring copyright
to the FSF"

It says "GNU Software", not GPL. So it is wrong to say that GNU requires
all developers to sign over their copyright if they want to call it GNU
software.

There is in fact a whole list of items that GNU software has to adhere to
but signing over copyright is not one of them.

Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 22, 2006 22:58 UTC (Fri) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (1 responses)

In the case of the sentance it does not say reassignment of GNU code... but FSF code. THe FSF may have changed this recently, but if a codebase was considered already to be FSF (coreutils, binutils, etc) then you had to do the copyright signover if you wanted them to look at the patch (and I mean that literally for at least one patch I sent in).

Kernel developers' position on GPLv3

Posted Sep 23, 2006 4:45 UTC (Sat) by jstAusr (guest, #27224) [Link]

That might have to do with FSF being able to insure that it can conveniently defend the code in court.