On Copyright Assignment

“A little while back, Michael Meeks published a lengthy piece
about copyright assignment (not nearly as lengthy as the articles
he links to on untangling Wittgenstein’s net). Go on, read it
(Michael’s stuff, not the net). It’s worth your time.
When you get to the bottom, follow the link to Dave Neary’s
take on assignment as well.

“I’m going to take the time to respond to Michael and Dave
with two different hats on: my FSFE hat (work-work, where I do
legal and licensing stuff in the Freedom Task Force) and my KDE hat
(volunteer work, where I have hacked on various bits and pieces for
over a decade). This isn’t an entirely independent article on
assignment, but looks at their comments on it. First off:
there’s no right answer. Just like I say during my licensing
talks at conferences: it (licensing or copyright assignment) is a
choice that needs to be made, and that choice needs to be
compatible with your goals, your morals, your business needs (if
any), your sense of community (if any) and your desire to deal with
administrative details.

“One or two points of fact, though: the FSF does not require
assignment — not for all GNU projects, at least. For some,
yes. I made this exact same mistake at the GNU hacker’s
meeting in Gothenburg last month. After all, it’s easy to
find articles stating that the FSF requires assignment — even
on the FSF site — and not so easy to find ones that do not.
After all, it’s hard to search for the absence of a document.
Andy Wingo can probably point out some.”

Complete
Story