[dmd-internals] DMD copyright assignment

[Daniel Murphy via dmd-internals]

(somehow I failed to hit send on this last night)

On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 1:15 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu <andrei at erdani.com> wrote:
> Do you have a response for the existing precedents in which valuable work
> has been wasted?

My understanding is that in each case, work was wasted because it was
under license A which couldn't be converted to license B.  Boost
converts to everything else happily, which is why it was picked.
Therefore this problem does not exist with boost.

> More generally (and for everyone), and please don't take this the wrong way
> as it comes from someone who knows next to nothing about this: I see there's
> considerable discussion here; what is the larger issue that seems to go
> unstated? It's entirely fine to want to maintain copyright of one's work,
> but on the face of it OSS seems to be a poor vehicle for that.

It's not about wanting to maintain my copyright, it's about removing
an unnecessary hurdle to contribution.  For example, if we require
copyright assignment I can't submit code that I don't own the
copyright to, even if it's licence compatible.  Since the move to
boost means we don't need it, we shouldn't have it.

>
> Andrei
>
>
> On 6/23/14, 3:42 AM, Daniel Murphy via dmd-internals wrote:
>>
>> You don't need to deal with it in the future, because boost allows you
>> to change to a more restrictive license if necessary.  eg We could
>> change it to BSD or GPL _without_ needing copyright assignment.  This
>> is only a problem if we want to remove restrictions, and there doesn't
>> seem to be any point to doing that.
>>
>> Also, AIUI we will not be able to change the license of phobos and
>> druntime anyway, since there is no copyright assignment for those.
>> We're 'stuck' with boost either way.
>>
>> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 3:34 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> On 6/22/2014 8:14 PM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Those are all problems with incompatible licenses, and boost is
>>>> supposed to solve these.  Now that the frontend is boost, why do we
>>>> still need copyright assignment?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Maybe, maybe not. I don't know what kind of issues will come up in the
>>> future, and how could I deal with it if major contributors are no longer
>>> available? What if there's some legal nit with Boost and it needs to be
>>> adjusted? GPL and BSD licenses have undergone revisions, would we want to
>>> get stuck forever with an obsolete Boost?
>>>
>>> Like I said, we've already had this problem more than once - and the
>>> resolution was abandonment of valuable work.
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> I think for the frontend we're in good shape now without copyright
>>>> assignment.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 12:28 PM, Walter Bright via dmd-internals
>>>> <dmd-internals at puremagic.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> 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?
>>>>>
>>>>> _
>>>
>>>
>>>
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