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

[Mike Stump <mrs at windriver dot com>]

Let, let me say that this entire thead doesn't belong here.  It
belongs in gnu.misc.discuss.  I was going to point this out, but I
didn't catch it early enough to advert the thread here.

> To: Bruce Korb <bkorb@sco.COM>
> Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 14:50:44 -0400
> From: David Edelsohn <dje@watson.ibm.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.

I believe you are mistaken or you don't understand my position.

My claim is that I can write a piece of code.  I can sell
non-exclusive ownership of this piece of code to person X for $10.  I
can sell non-exclusive owner ship to another person Y for the same
piece of code.  Person Y can assign copyright to the FSF.  The FSF
doesn't require that the donating party have world wide exclusive
ownership in a work to assign.  Doing so in no way impacts person X.
X is the owner of the code they got from me, they can do anything with
it that an owner can do with it.

I can blackbox this to make it appear to the outside that I write X,
that I assign X to the FSF with the standard assignment, and later, I
still own X.

If I sold X exclusively to one party, or if the party required that
the sale be exclusive or first sale, I would be out of luck.  I
checked my assignment with the FSF, it is not exclusive.  By default a
contract that is not stated to be exclusive is construed as being
non-exclusive.  With respect to exclusivity, the FSF assignment
specificly states:

(d) FSF agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant,
non-exclusive, royalty-free and non-cancellable rights to use the
Works (i.e., Developer's changes and/or enhancements, not the Program
that they enhance), as Developer sees fit; this grant back does not
limit FSF's rights and public rights acquired through this agreement.

6. Developer hereby agrees that if he has or acquires hereafter any
patent or interface copyright or other intellectual property interest
dominating the Works, the Program, the Program as enhanced by the
Works, or other enhancements to the Program, or the use of any of
those, such dominating interest will not be used to undermine the
effect of this assignment, i.e. the Foundation and the general public
will be licensed to use, in that program or programs and their
derivative works, without royalty or limitation, the subject matter of
the dominating interest.  This license provision will be binding on
the assignees of, or other successors to, the dominating interest, as
well as on Developer.  This license grant is nonexclusive,
royalty-free and non-cancellable.

That's it.  I think this is farily readable.

> 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.

Agreed.

> Only the title holder may redistribute under arbitrary terms unless
> the FSF assignment document allows the original author to retain
> those rights.

I take issue with this.

> It legally is possible for multiple parties to hold independent,
> complete title to the same code (this is different than joint
> title).

Bingo, so we can only disagree if you can find the requirement of
exclusivity in the FSF donation.  Where is it?

> 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.

No, read it again.  Unless you represent that this isn't the case in
your donation or in your assignment, or unless they reject your
donation because this is the case, it _is_ allowed.  All things are
allowed unless prohibited by law.  Unless you can cite a law that
prohibits it, it is allowed.  Feel free to cite the law, if you think
you are right.

> 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.

Yes.