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

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: siddhesh@gotplt.org (Siddhesh Poyarekar)
> Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2021 08:49:24 +0530
> 
> For me it is inclusion of (1) occasional contributors who may fix a bug 
> that's bothering them and walk away (2) contributors who prefer to 
> retain ownership of their content for various reasons and (3) 
> contributors who do not wish to assign copyright to the FSF for various 
> reasons.
> 
> I, as a regular contributor belong to a mix of 2 and 3.  I would 
> generally prefer to retain copyright to my work unless it is done at the 
> behest of my employer (in which case they deservedly own it since they 
> pay me for it) but can be persuaded to assign copyright to an 
> organization I trust to represent my values.

AFAIU, the copyright assignment to the FSF doesn't contradict (2),
because the assignment agreement explicitly grants the copyright back
to you.  Quote:

  (d) FSF agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant,
  nonexclusive, royalty free, fully paid up and non-cancellable
  worldwide rights to use the Works (i.e., Developer's changes and/or
  enhancements, not the Program that they enhance), as Developer sees
  fit; this grant back does not limit FSF's rights and public rights
  acquired through this agreement.

> All of this assumes that a copyright assignment is somehow superior to 
> DCO when it comes to legal defense and that the latter is just a 
> compromise.  I am not convinced that it is.

The DCO allows to make the presentation on behalf of third parties,
which were involved in writing the code, but are not part of the
contribution dialog.  It also hand-waves over the need to involve the
employer in the process, to make sure they won't claim the copyright.
So the risk of admitting code whose copyright could later be
challenged is greater.