LWN: Comments on "FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)"

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

aseigo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:44:07 +0000

> it would be possible to give the ability to enforce outside of the ability to relicense

This agreement allows KDE e.V. to take on essentially any action that the original copyright holder
could; it's not limited to relicensing, for instance.

> the right to enforce the license, collect for non-enforcement and share any damages?

That's already allowed by this instrument, and one of the reasons (we hope never to have to
exercise) for having it.

> wouldn't there be a way to constrain this ability

Absolutely. When you sign an FLA with KDE e.V., there's another document called the FRA (which
is referenced in the FLA) that defines this aspect of the agreement. This document defines how
KDE e.V. must behave in matters relating to the FLA to keep KDE e.V. in line with its original
mandate and the precepts of Free / Open Source software.

It is a separate document so as to keep it between the signatories only and out of the FLA itself
where it could end up being misused in a court case, for instance, to slow down or derail a case.
The language that sets these parameters is well understood between the signatories, but may
open legal doors for "exploration" by third parties (e.g. an alleged GPL violator's legal council). So
KDE e.V. is regulated by the language in the FRA, but that FRA is not available to be (mis)used as a
legal tool by third parties should such a situation arise.

IANAL, Aaron Seigo.

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

zotz — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:10:49 +0000

Other Options?

I wonder whether it would be possible to give the ability to enforce outside of the ability to relicense.

Could one not make an agreement to give the right to enforce the license, collect for non-enforcement and share any damages?

Also, with the ability to relicense, wouldn't there be a way to constrain this ability to certain parameters so that some wild change would not be possible, but sensible ones in keeping with the original intent of the coders would be possible?

all the best,

drew

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

dlang — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:52:35 +0000

by the way, the full text of the announcement says that developers are not required to sign over their copyrights, but this is in place for those who want to.

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

jejb — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:10:53 +0000

Any copyright holder can do a one time delegation to a lawyer to sue for infringement. You still have to sign a few papers because it's done in your name, but that's it. This is how the SFLC is enforcing busybox (every new suit requires a new authority from the copyright holders).

So the idea that the authority has to be delegated in perpetuity, like the FLA does is incorrect.

On the other hand, project contributors do die or move on to other things (and change email address). If the infringement of a distributed ownership work is only a small amount of code, you have to be able to find the owners of exactly that code in order to begin a lawsuit.

The main problem with the FLA for the kernel for example is that we'd have to find all the authors to begin using it. However, perhaps there's the case for a better and weaker instrument. Something that permitted X to sue on behalf of developers but didn't do the exclusive assignment rights (the latter are what require all authors). To be effective it would really only need authors covering reasonable areas which will be much easier to put together and provide the same level of infringement protection as the FLA.

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

pynm0001 — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 22:47:51 +0000

> but I would have thought that the busybox lawsuits would have put to rest
> the fiction that unless the copyrights are assigned to the project there
> is legal questions on the ability to sue for infringement.

There are not legal questions on the ability to sue for infringement.
Rather, there are legal questions on the ability of the project to sue for
infringement. Copyright violations are enforced by the owner of the
copyright, a project has no right to step in and sue for a random
developer. That is, with an agreement such as this.

Notice that the BusyBox lawsuits were filed on behalf of the developers of
BusyBox, just as the Free Software Foundation handles enforcement actions
on GNU software. In both cases these are enforcement actions from the
copyright holders.

The reasoning here is if a developer wants to avoid copyright infringement
of his GPL-ed software but does not want to or will be unable to handle
enforcement actions himself. He can delegate that to the KDE e.V. in this
case. The flipside is that the KDE e.V. gets certain powers as well now
(enumerated in the agreement that was ratified).

But there are definitely issues for large projects where developers
maintain their own copyright without some kind of agreement like this.

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

dlang — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:49:05 +0000

the ability to re-license is a valid reason (one that I happen to disagree with, but valid
nontheless)

but I would have thought that the busybox lawsuits would have put to rest the fiction that
unless the copyrights are assigned to the project there is legal questions on the ability to
sue for infringement.