Re: Seeking input from developers: glibc copyright assignment policy.

[Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh@gotplt.org>]

On 7/2/21 1:03 AM, Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Keep in mind that the copyright assignment/disclaimer arrangements have many
> forms and structures; IIUC, most can be revoked.  Furthermore, I note that
> the deadline day for input on this momentous change is nearing its end, and
> there are no statements on this thread from the well-known major employers
> involved in glibc about what their intended copyright policy if the FSF
> copyright assignment mandate is lifted.

For commercial distribution vendors**, I suspect it is not as easy a 
decision to withdraw copyright assignment since their contribution to 
GNU goes beyond gcc and glibc.  For hardware vendors (who form the other 
large contingent of contributors) maybe it's not as hard a decision, but 
it still involves getting legal to evaluate the change and initiate the 
process so I'm not entirely sure given that nobody has actually moved 
yet AFAICT.

> Absent assurances and more information, we must assume the worst case: that
> the all new copyrights are owned by the contributors' employers as soon as
> the copyright assignment mandate is lifted.

But for that their assignment has to be terminated, no?  If nobody has 
moved to do that, the worst case assumption ought to be a little more 
benign, i.e. companies start evaluating and withdrawing their 
assignments and the change happens more slowly over the coming months/years.

Regardless of that, I reckon the FSF will always have enough of a 
copyright stake to allow enforcing copyleft.  The glibc code base has 
legally significant artifacts at least from the early 90s that have 
survived to this date; that's 30 years.

> I suppose it's possible that companies who contribute to glibc have also
> faced frivolous copyright claims on FOSS.  (However, such incidents are
> extremely rare, though — and, I'm admittedly wondering if you're referencing
> the same widely exaggerated tale that I'm thinking of.)  Regardless, I think
> it's a moot point.  Such a situation doesn't imply those companies will
> later have the goal of defending the rights of users under copyleft.  If
> relevant at all, IMO, it cuts the other way: those companies may seek
> copyrights for escalation/counter-claims against any enforcement action
> (even a legitimate one brought to defend users' rights).  Note that, when

/me nods.  Based on my limited knowledge from asking around, it doesn't 
look like anybody has moved to terminate their assignments. 
Unfortunately I am not privy to the assignment file or the details of 
contracts with the FSF so I don't know for sure.

Siddhesh

** I am not speaking for my employer (Red Hat) and this is my personal 
impression based on my understanding of how distributions work.