GNOME & Intel Developers Plan The Wayland Future

[TheBlackCat]

Actually, no. CLA in the sense of copyright assignment is not used by any of the Red Hat projects (except for Cygnus) last I checked. If you read say the Fedora agreement, it is *very* explicit about not requiring you to assign any copyright to Red Hat.

You don't have to assign copyright to Canonical or Qt, either. You provide them a license to sublicense it. Fedora doesn't seem to require this anymore (they used to), but it looks like Red Hat still does (second link), and whatever the first link is also requires it.

[RahulSundaram]

You don't have to assign copyright to Canonical or Qt, either. You provide them a license to sublicense it. Fedora doesn't seem to require this anymore (they used to), but it looks like Red Hat still does (second link), and whatever the first link is also requires it.

Don't be fooled by misleading links. If you look at any *current* agreements of Red Hat, you will find that none of them require you to assign copyright or sublicense. It was dismantled for all actively maintained Red Hat projects except for Cygnus like I noted before.

http://www.freeipa.org/page/WhyCLA

"As of Sep 15, 2010 a CLA is no longer required. This page is being maintained for historical purposes "

[TheBlackCat]

Don't be fooled by misleading links. If you look at any *current* agreements of Red Hat, you will find that none of them require you to assign copyright or sublicense. It was dismantled for all actively maintained Red Hat projects except for Cygnus like I noted before.

Fair enough. But you still don't need to assign copyright to either Canonical or Qt.

[RahulSundaram]

Fair enough. But you still don't need to assign copyright to either Canonical or Qt.

It is effectively the same when you are licensing them the right to do anything they want with your code.

[TheBlackCat]

It is effectively the same when you are licensing them the right to do anything they want with your code.

Not really. With copyright assignment, they own the copyright, meaning you no longer have any rights to it at all. With a license agreement, it gives them additional rights, but does not take away any of your existing rights. You can still do whatever you want with the code.

So, for example, with copyright assignment, you could conceivably be sued for copyright violation for using your own code. This can never happen with Canonical or Qt because you still own the copyright to your code.

Further, they are not allowed to do "whatever they want with your code", they are still bound to provide it under the same license you contributed it under. They can add additional licenses, but they have no right to take any license away.

[RahulSundaram]

Not really. With copyright assignment, they own the copyright, meaning you no longer have any rights to it at all. With a license agreement, it gives them additional rights, but does not take away any of your existing rights. You can still do whatever you want with the code.

Further, they are not allowed to do "whatever they want with your code", they are still bound to provide it under the same license you contributed it under. They can add additional licenses, but they have no right to take any license away.

Well no, copyright agreement cannot take away all my rights depending on the country. In some places, these rights are not alienable and yes, they have the ability to do whatever they want with your code. Qt license does not have any such clauses requiring them to license the codebase under the original contribution. KDE e.v agreement does not guarantee that either. Canonical has a small condition depending on which agreement you are talking about but it isn't as broad as you seem to think it is.

Here is the fundamental problem: They have the *sole* ability to relicense the entire codebase in any way they see fit. You can cling on to your own copyright but it is unequal agreement. ONLY Digia can sell Qt under a proprietary license. No single contributor can do that. Similarly for Canonical and say, Mir.

[TheBlackCat]

Well no, copyright agreement cannot take away all my rights depending on the country. In some places, these rights are not alienable

At best you have far fewer rights with copyright assignment than you do with a license like we are talking about, at worst you have no rights at all.

Qt license does not have any such clauses requiring them to license the codebase under the original contribution.

They don't need to, the L/GPL requires that. They can release versions under new licenses, but the original submissions must remain under the license it was originally submitted under.

Here is the fundamental problem: They have the *sole* ability to relicense the entire codebase in any way they see fit. You can cling on to your own copyright but it is unequal agreement. ONLY Digia can sell Qt under a proprietary license. No single contributor can do that. Similarly for Canonical and say, Mir.

I never said it wasn't asymmetrical, I said it wasn't the same as copyright assignment, which it isn't. Nothing you have said changes that.

[RahulSundaram]

I never said it wasn't asymmetrical, I said it wasn't the same as copyright assignment, which it isn't. Nothing you have said changes that.

Note, I said *effectively* the same because they are both asymmetrical and that to me is a fundamental reason to reject them both.

[TheBlackCat]

Note, I said *effectively* the same because they are both asymmetrical and that to me is a fundamental reason to reject them both.

By definition they are not "effectively the same" because their effects are very different. In one case you lose rights, and restricted in what you can do with your own code. In the other, you aren't. That is a different effect. "I don't like either" and "they are effectively the same" are not the same thing.

[RahulSundaram]

By definition they are not "effectively the same" because their effects are very different. In one case you lose rights, and restricted in what you can do with your own code. In the other, you aren't. That is a different effect. "I don't like either" and "they are effectively the same" are not the same thing.

I don't consider the effects very different at all. The core effect is that only one party has the ability to relicense the entire codebase.