Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Darryl Miles]

Dave Korn wrote:
> On 14 August 2006 18:08, Darryl Miles wrote:
> 
>   TITTLL, /please/.  I am sending a reply there which (I think) addresses most
> of your points.
> 
>> mwoehlke wrote:
> 
>>> IANALTYMSIEIAATS...
> 
>> IANAL also.
> 
>   This is the cygwin mailing list.  A discussion of legal matters between two
> people - who both /admit/ they have no authoritative understanding of what
> they're talking about - is off-topic.  Not to mention most likely
> uninformative and unproductive.

Yes sorry for that, I wasn't actually aware there was a license list 
until just pointed out.  I am just subscribing now.

But in response to your quip, it also part of the problem, I'm not going 
to appoint legal council address this issue, its just not that important 
to me.  So it has to be sorted out in a manner that appeases my current 
understanding, which in this case means don't sign anything that might 
gives up any rights I currently have or anything I do not understand!

End of discussion here, moved to the other list now...

Darryl

RE: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Dave Korn]

On 14 August 2006 18:25, Darryl Miles wrote:

> Dave Korn wrote:
>> On 14 August 2006 18:08, Darryl Miles wrote:
>> 
>>   TITTLL, /please/.  I am sending a reply there which (I think) addresses
>> most of your points. 
>> 
>>> mwoehlke wrote:
>> 
>>>> IANALTYMSIEIAATS...
>> 
>>> IANAL also.
>> 
>>   This is the cygwin mailing list.  A discussion of legal matters between
>> two people - who both /admit/ they have no authoritative understanding of
>> what they're talking about - is off-topic.  Not to mention most likely
>> uninformative and unproductive.
> 
> Yes sorry for that, I wasn't actually aware there was a license list
> until just pointed out.  I am just subscribing now.
> 
> But in response to your quip, it also part of the problem, I'm not going
> to appoint legal council address this issue, its just not that important
> to me.  So it has to be sorted out in a manner that appeases my current
> understanding, which in this case means don't sign anything that might
> gives up any rights I currently have or anything I do not understand!
> 
> End of discussion here, moved to the other list now...

  In fact, that post came to "the other list" (which is now 'here') rather
than the main list anyway.

  Well, to get started, I already posted a reply to your earlier post:
http://cygwin.com/ml/cygwin-licensing/2006-q3/msg00000.html

  Also, a couple of selected points from your follow-up:

> The beef is that I am forced to signed a legally binding agreement with 
> a profit generating organization in order to contribute code for free. 

  Why is this a problem?  It doesn't cost you anything except maybe 70p for
postage to the USA.

> Another concern (as citizen of the UK) is that from what I perceive of 
> US law, is that those with the most money end up winning fringe civil 
> court cases.  

  Nothing in the contract says you owe them money for anything.  Therefore if
they attempt to enforce it in court, the most they could claim is the $0 that
you owe them.  This would cost them an awful lot of money in lawyers' fees to
claim, and their shareholders might feel that a minus infinity percent rate of
return didn't make it a good investement.

> Then there is the case of "assignment of copyright" which I understand 
> to mean that where my name would normally be added at the top of the 
> piece of work is replaced with the RedHat and no public record within 
> that work is retained that I was originally the copyright holder.

  Your name is down on the patch that you send to the mailing lists, on the
archives of those mailing lists, on the changelog entry, in the CVS log
message, and (if you're contributing a whole file, rather than just a small
patch to an existing one) at the top of the file.

>  The only reason to 
> get a signed agreement is to enable the option of going to a court of 
> law for judgment in the future. 

  That's not true.  There are many other, non-paranoid reasons for their
wanting a signed agreement, and the reason is:

  IF someone else rips off the cygwin code and tries to distribute it without
sources, Redhat can only sue them for breaching the GPL if Redhat is the
copyright holder.

  You should read the GPL FAQ: although it applies specifically to the FSF,
the reasoning and motivation behind the need for assignments is the same.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html



    cheers,
      DaveK
-- 
Can't think of a witty .sigline today....

Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Christopher Faylor]

On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 06:24:41PM +0100, Darryl Miles wrote:
>But in response to your quip, it also part of the problem, I'm not going 
>to appoint legal council address this issue, its just not that important 
>to me.

Funny you should use those words.

Again, I'll say that it is vanishingly unlikely that you will be talking
to a Red Hat lawyer so if you can't sign the Cygwin license agreement,
you won't be getting code into Cygwin.  There is no way to circumvent
this requirement.

Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Darryl Miles]

Christopher Faylor wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 14, 2006 at 06:24:41PM +0100, Darryl Miles wrote:
>> But in response to your quip, it also part of the problem, I'm not going 
>> to appoint legal council address this issue, its just not that important 
>> to me.
> 
> Funny you should use those words.
> 
> Again, I'll say that it is vanishingly unlikely that you will be talking
> to a Red Hat lawyer so if you can't sign the Cygwin license agreement,
> you won't be getting code into Cygwin.  There is no way to circumvent
> this requirement.

Yes I use those words just because I understand RHs position.

There is nothing to stop me publically maintaining a patch and patched 
version of CYGWIN and source tree to build it as GPLed work.

There is little stopping someone coming along who will sign the 
agreement from looking at my patch, getting the general idea and 
implementing their own version of a similar thing and for that work to 
be submitted.

Either way I have my fix and cygwin might have a usable submission.



You could also think of the situation differently, if RedHat were not 
around (went bankrupt, ha ha, LOL).  Then someone took over or setup a 
cygwin website the first thing that would go would be the copyright 
assignment agreement, since its a superfluous piece of documentation 
that only served RedHat.

I have no idea how the law deals with non-existant copyright holders, 
people dying or companies going bankrupt.  The people issue maybe dealt 
with as straightforward inheritance.  But the incorporated company. 
This maybe another reason why the FSF is a better bet, yes it is still 
possible for a not-for-profit organization to go bankrupt but I'd hope 
less likely and probably more amenable to accept donations from business 
to restructure it should it get into difficulties (like I believe it to 
have in the past).


Darryl

Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Corinna Vinschen]

On Aug 15 10:08, Darryl Miles wrote:
> You could also think of the situation differently, if RedHat were not 

s/RedHat/Red Hat/

> around (went bankrupt, ha ha, LOL).  Then someone took over or setup a 
> cygwin website the first thing that would go would be the copyright 
> assignment agreement, since its a superfluous piece of documentation 
> that only served RedHat.

- The copyright assignment is older than Red Hat's ownership of
  Cygwin.  It was already the exact same way (just change names) when
  Cygwin was owned by Cygnus.  

- Removing the copyright assignment does not lift the GPL from Cygwin.

- That's the last time I participate in a fruitless discussion about
  the Cygwin copyright assignment.  I can't change it, you can't change
  it.  If you don't want to take it as it is, don't contribute.

Everything's said.  Please move on with your daily life.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

Re: Rsync over ssh (pulling from Cygwin to Linux) stalls..

[Darryl Miles]

Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> - The copyright assignment is older than Red Hat's ownership of
>   Cygwin.  It was already the exact same way (just change names) when
>   Cygwin was owned by Cygnus.
> 
> - Removing the copyright assignment does not lift the GPL from Cygwin.

Both of these points are irrelevant to my point of view, neither were 
being disputed.



> - That's the last time I participate in a fruitless discussion about
>   the Cygwin copyright assignment.  I can't change it, you can't change
>   it.  If you don't want to take it as it is, don't contribute.

The issue of assignment agreement only affects submissions to the 
official tree, it doesn't affect what I call a contribution which is 
anything made publically available under the GPL.

I am happy not to change RedHat's process.  But it is possible to still 
contribute changes under the GPL, that contribution will be made 
available somewhere outside of cygwin.com.


Thank you for your points of view,

Darryl