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
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....
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.
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
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
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