Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new

Daniel Berlin
2002-10-20T19:00:31Z

On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Ben Collins wrote:

> On Sat, Oct 19, 2002 at 07:28:43PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >
> >
> > At the potential cost of getting flamed, I think it is worth pointing
> > out that the FSF's copyright assignment policy on several of their
> > projects is _very_ anti-freedom. You are required to relinquish all
> > your rights to your contributions, in exchange for the hope that the FSF
> > will protect them.
>
> Jeff, they don't force you, they require it to be turned over to them
> for inclusion in the FSF proper upstream source. Also, it doesn't mean
> that you lose your rights to the original piece. You can still reuse
> your own source as the copyright owner.
Not quite.
The reason you can reuse is only because they grant the right to use (and
sublicense, etc) back to you as part of the contract.
You are *not* the copyright owner anymore, however.