Re: SGI releases IA64 C C++ and F90 compiler under GPL

[David Edelsohn <dje at watson dot ibm dot com>]

>>>>> Bruce Korb writes:

Bruce> Then something must be very unclear.  The normal, ordinary understanding
Bruce> of copyright ownership means that the owner of the copyright determines
Bruce> the usage of the copyrighted material.  The owner has the right to license
Bruce> or not license usage of the material, whether or not the licensee is
Bruce> the original creator of the work.  That is the normal usage of
Bruce> the term, "owner".  Is the FSF using a different meaning for "owner"?

       I believe that you are correct and Mike misunderstands the FSF
assignment.  The original author must have some form of title to the
original work in order to redistribute the code using a different license
after title has been assigned.  Only the title holder may redistribute
under arbitrary terms unless the FSF assignment document allows the
original author to retain those rights.

	It legally is possible for multiple parties to hold independent,
complete title to the same code (this is different than joint title).
Essentially it means that one forks the same, identical code and each
party evolves the code separately with full rights to redistribute it and
re-license it.  I know that this sounds weird, but there is common sense
and then there is the law (:^).  I do not believe that the FSF assignment
document provides for split title.  I know that the FSF does not allow
joint title, but this is not joint title - the FSF has its copy completely
under its control.

	I think that creating multiple titles would satisfy Marc's
concern.  Note that any change's to the non-FSF version of the code would
need to be assigned independently for it to be incorporated into the FSF
version.

David