Discouraging contributors (Was: g++.old-deja/g++.other/anon7.C)

[Bernardo Innocenti]

On Monday 28 July 2003 23:17, Richard Kenner wrote:
>     Not loosing or upsetting lots of contributors is much more
>     important than being able to eventually sue someone in the unlikely
>     event that it becomes necessary in a distant future.
>
> It's not just that: if people don't assign copyright, there is no assurance
> that they *own* the copyright in the first place.  This way, they are
> asserting that they have the right to assign the code.  In the absence of
> that, somebody might contribute code copyrighted to a third party without
> that party's permission.  Then could then sue to stop the distribution
> of GCC and then the work of *all* the contributors will be in vain.

Do you really need 100% legal assurance for *everything* you do, even
when the countermeasure is extremely expensive, the event is very unlikely
and the damage you may get is insignificant?

If someone contributes stuff and then changes his mind, you just pull
the code. You can still rewrite it from scratch if you absolutely need it. 

99% of the other projects out there aren't imposing any copyright
assignment restrictions and most have been flourishing for several
years...

-- 
  // Bernardo Innocenti - Develer S.r.l., R&D dept.
\X/  http://www.develer.com/

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