[dmd-internals] DMD copyright assignment

[Walter Bright via dmd-internals]

On 6/22/2014 2:15 PM, David Nadlinger via dmd-internals wrote:
> On 22 Jun 2014, at 20:38, Walter Bright via dmd-internals wrote:
>> It's still a good idea, as I'm not sure what issues may come up about it in 
>> the future. We've had contributors disappear before, questions come up, and 
>> we were forced to abandon their contributions as a result.
>
> Putting aside all the other reasons why I think requiring copyright assignment 
> now is a really bad idea:
>
> 1. What instance of troubles are you referring to, specifically?

Jascha Wetzel wrote a Windows debugger in D, for example. His license was 
incompatible, he disappeared, his project was abandoned as a result. Then 
there's the case of the Tango code, such as the excellent XML parser - can't be 
incorporated into dmd because of the license. All that value got abandoned; 
nobody benefited from it. What a waste.


>
> 2. How would a dubious copyright assignment give you any more security than 
> licensing a contribution under Boost?

If issues come up that only the copyright holder can resolve, we will be 
completely unable to resolve them. For example, I needed assignments in order to 
change the license to Boost. If one major contributor had refused, then where 
would we be?


>
> Also note that systematically requiring copyright assignment before merging a 
> change on GitHub is not something we are currently doing. I was just not sure 
> whether it is something you want to start doing.


I don't think it's critical for smallish contributions, as they can be worked 
around if necessary. For larger ones, yes.

You say you're worried about something with this - can you explain? What's 
"really bad" about it?