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

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Cc: fweimer@redhat.com, libc-alpha@sourceware.org
> From: Siddhesh Poyarekar <siddhesh@gotplt.org>
> Date: Mon, 28 Jun 2021 09:41:03 +0530
> 
> On 6/26/21 12:01 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> >> That's a claim from the FSF, which does not to correspond to the text of
> >> the agreement; I don't know if that can be viewed as a clarification.
> > 
> > Since those are the guys to whom the assignment goes, I think their
> > claim does have some weight.  And note the authors of that article.
> > 
> > But if that's insufficient, whose opinion will satisfy you?
> 
> Even if I concede to the idea that their claim has some weight , they do 
> not explicitly say that the "use" in our agreements implies distribution 
> rights.  Also, how much legal weight does a website article (regardless 
> of its source) have over an agreement, especially one which says that it 
> most likely never will be supplemented by another agreement?

AFAIU, that's how things are in the legal business: you get the
opinions of the experts and work with that.

> To flip it around, if I as the second party to that agreement, claim 
> that the agreement means that I am entitled to compensation for my 
> patches or some other ridiculous claim, does that claim have weight?

On which parts of the document will you base this ridiculous claim?

> >> If I looked at the same article in a different context, it appears to me
> >> that "use" is distinct enough from "modify, share and sublicense" that
> >> the latter needs to be spelled out explicitly.
> > 
> > But they are all allowed, according to the article, so why does it
> > matter?
> 
> Because an article is not a legal document.

Since legal documents rarely change, reasonable interpretation by
experts is what you have to do with.  It is very strange to hear what
you say in this case, given that no one else seems to be of the same
opinion, everyone else interpret this as a grant of unlimited
nonexclusive rights.  It almost sounds like you don't _want_ the
language to mean that.