Should Open Source Communities Avoid Contributor Agreements? (ComputerWorld) [LWN.net]

Should Open Source Communities Avoid Contributor Agreements? (ComputerWorld)

Posted Aug 29, 2010 15:29 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
In reply to: Should Open Source Communities Avoid Contributor Agreements? (ComputerWorld) by dmaxwell
Parent article: Should Open Source Communities Avoid Contributor Agreements? (ComputerWorld)

You don't have to trust the FSF at all.

The Foundation promises that all distribution of the Work, or of any work "based on the Work," that takes place under the control of the Foundation or its assignees, shall be on terms that explicitly and perpetually permit anyone possessing a copy of the work to which the terms apply, and possessing accurate notice of these terms, to redistribute copies of the work to anyone on the same terms. These terms shall not restrict which members of the public copies may be distributed to. These terms shall not require a member of the public to pay any royalty to the Foundation or to anyone else for any permitted use of the work they apply to, or to communicate with the Foundation or its agents in any way either when redistribution is performed or on any other occasion.

If they change it to a non-open source licence, the copyright reverts to you. I suppose you need to trust your government to enforce that, which may or may not be a problem :)

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Should Open Source Communities Avoid Contributor Agreements? (ComputerWorld)

Posted Sep 3, 2010 18:38 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

If they change it to a non-open source license, the copyright reverts to you.

Are you sure? Because nothing in the paragraph you took the trouble to quote says that. When a party to a contract breaks a promise of this kind, it doesn't undo the contract or even any promise by the other party -- it generally just means the breaching party owes the other one money.

Another thing to worry about: As a contract lawyer I am frequently frustrated by clients who say, "there's no reason to put that in writing, we trust each other to do what's right, and we have a separate understanding on this." I have a number of rebuttals to that, but the easiest one is: "you won't necessarily be dealing with each other." You could be dealing with his heir or creditor, or worst of all, bankruptcy trustee. A bankruptcy trustee's duty is to get every penny he can for creditors, to the limits of the law. "Do what's right" doesn't enter into it.

I'm not saying anything about the FSF or this copyright assignment contract, because I don't know -- just talking about the general trust issue.