“In 2004 Daniel Robbins, the founder of Gentoo Linux, walked
away from the project after creating the nonprofit Gentoo
Foundation to handle its intellectual property (IP). In a blog post
last month, Robbins wondered if he should take back the software,
since it didn’t appear the foundation was taking care of things.
While Robbins didn’t follow through on his thought, he raised an
interesting question: Can someone convey intellectual property
rights and then reclaim them?“Almost immediately after he blogged about it, Robbins wrote the
issue off as nothing more than a late-night rant, and disavowed any
desire to take back what he had given the foundation. The
foundation also helped dampen lingering interest in the story by
quickly taking steps to replace Robbins as its president, a
position he had held back in the day, and from which he had never
formally been removed. That was basically the end of the
tale…”