I'd love for SFC to have _joint_ copyright with me. I'd be glad to assign them copyright to odd lines of my code, while I keep the even ones, for instance. If they do enforcement for me, that's great. If damages help sustain their operations, so much the better.
However, this assignment allows them to:
- Sell my GPL code to Apple for use in their new iPad
- Relicense my AGPL code under the BSD license (or vice-versa)
... and so on. The whole point of free software licenses is to act as a sort of constitution or code-of-conduct. This just hands over the keys to the castle.
I would love to have this service, but I would never blindly hand over my copyright like this. I would definitely NOT sign anything with language like "irrevocably appoints Conservancy as their attorney-in-fact to take any necessary steps to perfect Conservancy’s rights under this Agreement." This just feels predatory.
I'm not attributing malice, but SFC should go back and draft an agreement that's fair to both sides. SFC should guarantee basic rights, such as that the license won't be changed without my permission, not "The Conservancy will use its discretion for any relicensing of the Works under other free and open source software licenses. Decisions about relicensing made by Conservancy will apply to its assignees and successors."
I've seen not-for-profits drift from their roots, in one case, even selling all similar assets and rights to a for-profit.
(As a footnote, if they wanted this to be sustainable, they might give the assignor some portion of damages if they ever need to enforce the license)
You're taking a risk. Do you think they're going to try and hijack your copyright for some nefarious purpose, or do you think they might need flexibility in relicensing your work in the future?
Contacting all those contributors to get them to agree to a license change is a large undertaking. But assigning the copyright to the SFC Conservancy also requires contacting all of them for their agreement. If my concern is ensuring flexibility in licensing, the original developer might as well just contact them all and have them sign a CLA or similar, granting control of the copyright to themselves. Then they’ve got the same flexibility, without needing the SFC.
FSF leadership is currently having a crisis since, due to recent events, they realized that Stallman is not eternal. FSF-owned code is an incredible asset. If there were a corporate takeover of the FSF, that could have very bad outcomes.
Regarding contacting every owner, that'd be a nightmare in 1960. In 2022: "We will contact you at the email address on file," an ability to opt in / opt out via web form, and some language about changing to equivalent media (e.g. SMS, fax, robocall, USPS, AOL Instant Messenger, or whatever).
I'll mention I picked out a few examples of nasty legal language. The whole agreement is nasty, unfair, and one-sided. I like the concept a lot, but I'd never sign language like that. I like working with organizations who try to be fair to both sides.
Oh -- and for language which applies to "successors" -- all bets are off. I specifically do not want the SFC to assign my copyright to a successor. I've seen specific examples where a successor to a non-profit was a for-profit.
In spite of the fact that the SFC would not exist without RMS, they explicitly supported the attempt to eject him from the Free Software Foundation on the basis of trumped up allegations.
The SFC is Brad Kuhn's attempt to profit off the GPL, which he couldn't do when he was associated with the FSF or the Software Freedom Law Center.
Individual lines of code (or even the odd or even lines as a whole, separate from the other) don't seem likely to usually be works subject to copyright.
Jointly owning the copyright is different from them owning half and you owning half.
that is a neat trick, since a non-profit cannot own and sell assets like that, that I know of, in the USA. details? hogwash?
Or for a nefarious but legal example, see the attempted selling off the rights to the .org TLD rights by ICANN. https://thenextweb.com/news/hurray-the-org-tld-wont-be-sold-...
However, I'd encourage you to look into hospitals, industry groups like the RIAA, family foundations like the Trump Foundation, and similar organizations. You can find your own examples easily enough.
That's not to mention non-profits hijacked for new purposes (e.g. the current move away from founding values to woke values for a few organizations that's been bugging HN commentators lately).
(And yes, I do know the difference between a 501(c)3, 501(c)6, family foundation, etc).
Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonable.
The SF Conservancy is now trying to SUE folks over using GPL code they had no hand in creating. This would let them leverage a very extreme position to after the fact re-write what the licensing meant. BTW, they have a long history of this poor behavior. Here is Linus Torvalds notes on them.
"I actually think we should talk about GPL enforcement at the kernel summit, because I think it's an important issue," Torvalds gently began, "but we should talk about it the way we talk about other issues: among kernel developers. No lawyers present unless they are in the capacity of a developer and maintainer of actual code, and in particular, absolutely not the Software Freedom Conservancy." - Linus Torvalds
Note this goes hand in hand with others attempts to re-write the GPL following their failures to force through the GPLv3 such as the EFF. This involves lots of handwaving and appeals to history but doesn't match what developers understood the GPLv2 to mean at all.
This shows that once you get the lawyers involved, it's seriously game over in some cases. Even though they were not lawyers, the early folks created very useful clear licenses.
This is fundamentally a pretty stupid take on the issue, to be honest. I can understand why Linus might want to ignore the SF Conservancy in particular here, but banning all lawyers in general is a stupid idea when you're discussing legal documents (that's what software licenses are). It's akin to saying "let's talk about why our car isn't working but NO CAR MECHANICS ALLOWED."
If what you're talking about is legal issues, you absolutely should involve lawyers, and generally earlier is better. This is particularly true when intellectual property is involved, as neglecting to take certain actions can completely foreclose future legal remedies.
It's a perfectly valid approach if your goal is to discuss developer's concerns/priorities/goals for GPL enforcement and not legal tactics to achieve some known set of goals, and particularly if your goal is to avoid a talk at mixed purposes because some people have goals in mind that are not agreed on and are trying to talk tactics while other people are trying to talk goals and no one gets anywhere.
what does this mean? Is it a rewrite if the interpretation changes? How does one infer what the person granting this license "really meant"?
I think it's wrong not to get lawyers involved, because the laymen gets legalese interpretation wrong all the time (and it's an easy mistake to make - "doesn't match what developers understood the GPLv2 to mean at all").
GPL enforcement should be scary - banking on the folks who owns the copyright not enforcing it should not be possible. Selective enforcement should not be a thing either. This can only be possible if an overarching entity with funding does the enforcement.
Each developer however could then make whatever they wanted with this code, and the GPL didn't control how you used the code in your project.
So you could make a car, and GPL software based control module could have a rev limiter in it. Others could also build cars using your code, BUT there was no requirement that USERS of your product be able to modify your product to for example get around the rev limiter or whatever.
This was battled out in part via the Tivo case, but was also just the normal readers understanding of the GPL.
This gave rise to the GPLv3 - which has the anti-tivoization clause in it. THAT version does say that you have to provide unlock codes etc etc. This ended up NOT being popular with the folks actually writing code.
What's happened though is that EFF / SFC have started to try and falsely claim that the GPLv2 is also like the GPLv3 - which is ironic because people DIDN'T want the GPLv3 over these issues in part.
https://jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/download/149/269 for an article and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaKIZ7gJlRU for Linus's take on the GPLv3 in general.
The latest tactic, because they can't get developers to go down the (A)GPLv3 path is to try and create a right that would allow them to sue everyone as activists even though they didn't write any code themselves. That would then let them put their own interpretations of all of this. I think the SFC is pushing that but I don't follow closely enough.
What is remarkable is just how few developers have gotten on board with this group.
https://wptavern.com/software-freedom-conservancy-takes-on-v...
The GPL (version 2 or 3) says that if someone distributes a binary of a GPL-covered program, the person who receives the binary is entitled to receive source code. So the Conservancy brought an action on behalf of users: look, the text says you owe us source code. Please provide it.
Apparently you think that this is a "scary new approach". But the GPL was written to protect users.
Ironically, the SFC I think tried to file their case in state court. Copyright law is a federal matter.
I've no doubt they will drag this issue out in circles forever. But you pretty much know that if they aren't willing to litigate a copyright license in the normal venue - they've got a problem :)
This is what is so worrisome. Now we hear from the SFC that a GPL violation is NOT a copyright violation? This is a ridiculous and yes, extreme interpretation of what most developers would have understood.
Let's check back in on this in the future and see if they can even keep this in state court to try and avoid copyright law.
Where is the hyperbolic let them leverage a very extreme position when some open source project asks for copyright assignment?
Since code talks and talk walks, they are not left with a ton. The Affero GPLv3 fell totally flat. GPLv3 pretty flat (Samba was a big adopter maybe? Not sure what growth they saw after that). Some of the SFC enforcement saw a big move / growth in MIT style licenses (no copyleft elements really) which is a big tragedy as well as a fracturing of licensing (another miss in my book).
So if they can get folks to assign them the copyright, that will let them start chasing again.
I'm not handwaving, I cited the article, the youtube video. This is pretty well known as a debate.
That never made sense to me. AFAIK, in many GPL projects there are numerous copyright holders. Therefore, who is going to be the one to sue over the issues and optional seek damages. If all the SF Conservancy wants is the ability to sue violators, why aren't they paying someone to develop a few lines to the Linux kernel and every other project. Then, they can have standing to sue. Of course, it doesn't give them standing to license everyone else's code, but if they want to sue it works.
This is what is remarkable. The SFC is so toxic in the open source developer community that despite their being a ton of a developers, not that many want to jump on the SFC train. So yes, this makes it hard for them.
Linus joked the title of a talk should be:
"Lawyers: poisonous to openness, poisonous to community, poisonous to projects".
So an approach for SFC might be to write code and start contributing. One challenge they might face is that a) they can't write code and/or b) getting developers to write for them that can do meaningful work may be difficult given their reputation and c) open source projects might choose not to accept their code because they know they'd be getting in bed with the SFC.
Realize the SFC views are very left field. They are now arguing in the Vizio case that the GPL is not a copyright license but some kind of contract with users. This is so backwards its crazy.
One solution, they write some very cool software everyone WANTS to use, then they could sue everyone. Downside, folks might stop using their software.
Developers have sued - that's mostly been fine I think. Harald Welte did a lot for the GPL. I liked most of his cases. He kept it focused on GPL license being available, and source code being available. He even won cases where links to source code in documentation were not allowed which was an interesting twist. But fundamentally his litigation followed Linus's and many other developers views, I give you my code, you give me yours, we are square. He did over 100 cases, and was successful every time that I know of.
I think the SFC is going to be on much thinner ground with their Vizio case but we will see.
Surely you mean GNU and not EFF.
Do you have a source for this claim. Unless you just mean, that they are suing people on behalf of the creator of the code (But without creating it themselves), in which case I would say you are being extremely misleading.
Why would they have legal standing if they are not the copyright owner?
Certainly you can't do it against the will of the copyright owner, as the copyright owner is allowed to give new licenses to anyone they want under whatever terms they want.
Edit: i stand corrected.
>The lawsuit we filed last year against Vizio takes an approach more appropriate for widely marketed and available consumer devices. Namely, the claim in Vizio is a contract claim for third-party beneficiary rights under the GPL, which will allow us (and all other customers who bought Vizio TV's) to receive the repair and modification instructions to the software more directly.
I don't think this is against the spirit of GPL, after all the focus of it is user freedom (though arguably GPLv2 ended up weaker than expected by FSF (TiVo hole), and then FSF strongly pushed to switch to GPLv3 while ignoring that some developers deliberately preferred v2 terms).
https://www.lawyer-monthly.com/2021/10/software-freedom-cons...
> Historically, the rights and responsibilities related to GPL comes from the copyright holder. If the GPL was not followed, the person who wrote the code could optionally take action. This actually works out pretty well, because folks who actually code tend NOT to file frivioulus type legal cases and things were reasonable.
If you write some code and release it under the GPL, and some company makes a device that includes a modified version of the software, and I buy the device but the company refuses to provide source for their modifications, why should my rights under the GPL depend on you as a developer (and copyright holder) suing the company? The GPL grants the user of the software specific rights and imposes equivalent obligations on whoever the user received the software from.
Whether the original developer is busy, uninterested, incapacitated, or even dead should have no impact on my rights as a user.
It may be true that a user is not (and perhaps even should not be) able to terminate the company's license to use, modify, and redistribute GPL software (I think that's debatable, since the GPL doesn't condition termination on the copyright owner taking action, but IANAL), but a user receiving the software should damn well be able to insist on receiving the modified source code, and in the face of a refusal to comply, a user should be able to sue. In fact, a class action suit on behalf of all affected users should be possible.
It is an important principle of the legal system that parties subject to an externality must be powerless to do anything.
"As the ex-maintainer of busybox who STARTED those lawsuits in the first place and now HUGELY REGRETS ever having done so, I think I'm entitled to stop the lawsuits in whatever way I see fit. They never resulted in a single line of code added to the busybox repository. They HAVE resulted in more than one company exiting Linux development entirely and switching to non-Linux operating systems" - https://lwn.net/Articles/478361/
Here is the SFC's issue (came up when busybox replacements were discussed)
"What can we do? The real problem here is that the SFC's reliance on Busybox means that they're only able to target infringers who use that Busybox code. No significant kernel copyright holders have so far offered to allow the SFC to enforce their copyrights, with the result that enforcement action will grind to a halt as vendors move over to this Busybox replacement."
What's weird is despite NO significant copyright holder going along with SFC, they keep on marching forward as if they are backed by folks creating this code.
More and more foundations are inserting themselves into the process of "developing" software. Most of them have handsomely paid directors, who parade at conferences and talk about how awesome free software is.
The actual developers are supposed to be silent work horses and deliver everything for free. They are increasingly treated as cogs whose names are never mentioned.
Looking at their list of sponsors doesn't exactly assuage any such doubts as to their trustworthiness either.
> The Linux Foundation — the organization that effectively controls Linux and employs the creator of Linux — only spends 3.4% [of $177M] on… Linux.
Is the proposed SFC copyright assignment intended to be temporary, e.g. could it be returned to the creator after a legal case is won? Why is it not sufficient for SFC to represent the copyright owner? Would joint/minority ownership be an option?
Leaving aside legal concerns, could code maintainers possibly lose the ability to steward their OSS community and set governance policy, after they surrender copyright?
More to the point, the foundation's web site doesn't say that its mission relates to Linux. It talks about software communities, open source etc.
* For project maintainers: The SF Conservancy can't prevent developers from working on their own project, because it is GPL-licensed and copyright holders can't retract GPL licensing once it's been given.
* For end-users: The GPL is a copyright license, not a EULA. So it only affects developers.
* For businesses that distribute software with changes: The risk of being sued by a copyright troll that buys the rights isn't an existential risk, because they can always keep using and fork an old GPL'd version.
No, they can't retract your permission to use your own software, but they can prevent you from going after infringing parties if SF Conservancy holds the copyright.
And at that point, why assign them copyright at all?
This is only true for GPLv3, and not GPLv2.
I wasn't aware that open source requires you to provide "repair and modification information". I thought it just requires you to make source-code modified by you publicly available. Can anyone elaborate on what the "repair information" in particular refers to?
And there are also requirements that you distribute additionaal "Installation Information" alongside the code itself. If you have to release your code under GPL, you must make it possible for end users to build & run your code. Can't hide behind proprietary in-house compilers, build systems, or build time dependencies on proprietary data to prevent end users making use of the GPL'd source.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#InstInfo
"GPLv3 explicitly requires redistribution to include the full necessary “Installation Information.” GPLv2 doesn't use that term, but it does require redistribution to include scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable with the complete and corresponding source code. This covers part, but not all, of what GPLv3 calls “Installation Information.” Thus, GPLv3's requirement about installation information is stronger."
It seems to me like it's a rhetorical framing of GPL rights to place them within the "right to repair" movement. (Think Richard Stallman wanting to fix issues with the printer at MIT, but unable to because the driver was closed-source proprietary code)
Hahahahahahaaaaa. Hoooo.
They might be evil, but they've never been evil in the way that would make me worry about them sponsoring this.
