Kuhn: It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

Posted Jul 1, 2021 18:12 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)
Parent article: Kuhn: It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

It's true that it would be better in an ideal world for the code to be owned by a foundation of some kind, rather than primarily by large employers. But the reason we got here is in part because the FSF has lost the trust of many contributors, so they are less willing than in the past to sign their code over. It isn't just that the paperwork is inconvenient.

Kuhn: It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

Posted Jul 2, 2021 19:58 UTC (Fri) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

That's fair, but this line from Bradley's post is relevant:

if I have to chose between the strict dichotomy of: (a) copyrights held by the FSF (which has the possibility of recovery in the future and restoration to an organization that actively enforces the GPL) vs. (b) copyrights held by companies — many of whom are known to oppose enforcement of the GPL, I would still pick the FSF

Kuhn: It Matters Who Owns Your Copylefted Copyrights

Posted Jul 3, 2021 19:16 UTC (Sat) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]

> It's true that it would be better in an ideal world for the code to be owned by a foundation of some kind, rather than primarily by large employers.

This is a false dichotomy. there are several fairly simple techniques developers can employ to keep ownership of their own copyrights:

https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/owning-your-own-copyri...

The problem is these aren't very well known, so they're not widely used. Perhaps publicising how developers could retain ownership would be more profitable than debating the lesser of evils between foundations and employers.