[dmd-internals] DMD copyright assignment

[Jonathan M Davis via dmd-internals]

On Monday, June 23, 2014 23:17:19 Andrei Alexandrescu via dmd-internals wrote:
> On 6/23/14, 9:06 PM, Steven Schveighoffer via dmd-internals wrote:
> > On Jun 23, 2014, at 8:43 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu via dmd-internals
> >
> > <dmd-internals at puremagic.com> wrote:
> >> I concur. If the contributor holding the copyright disappears, we
> >> can't change the license anymore. If the contributor holding the
> >> copyright has a falling with D, they can do harm by suddenly
> >> changing license for their part of Phobos. I don't see any good for
> >> anyone out of this - only the right to damage D in the future if
> >> they so want.
> >
> > The only harm this does is that we need someone else to maintain this
> > code. It does not retroactively change the license. Once it's in
> > phobos, and it's boost, there's no reneging on that.
>
> What if converting/relicensing it later to Boost 2.0 or some other
> license is in the best interest of D, and due to some technicality we'd
> need approval of all copyright holders? I don't know much about
> copyright law, but I think we can all agree it's complicated and prone
> to all sorts of loopholes. We can trust Walter to act in the best
> interest of D now and in the future; the alternative on the table is to
> trust instead an open union of persons.

I confess that part of me feels a little funny about the idea of everything
that I write for Phobos ending up under someone else's copyright, but from a
logical standpoint, it seems like a reasonable idea. And with many modules
effectively being copyrighted under multiple authors, picking apart who owns
what would be a bit of a pain anyway (though presumably, with enough effort,
the source control would tell you). So, if nothing else, given how many
modules are effectively copyrighted by multiple people, it would certainly be
cleaner if it were all under digital mars.

I don't expect that we'll ever need to change the license, particularly with
how unrestrictive Boost is, but we also don't really know what's going to
happen in the future, so it's arguably good insurance to be able to change the
license if we need to. The worst that can happen is that digital mars / Walter
becomes a Sith and does nasty things with the license, so we're forced to fork
using the current license.

By the way, if digital mars had the copyright for all of the main D code, and
Walter got run over by a bus tomorrow, what would happen to the copyright? Who
would own it? Would it make more sense to have the copyright go to some sort
of D foundation so that we as a group have some control over it? If we lost
control of the copyright due to some legal issue with digital mars, we might
actually be better off with the copyright being under all of the individual
contributors, because as much of a pain as it would be to get the license
changed at that point if we wanted to, it would at least be theoretically
possible, whereas if it were under digital mars, and none of us had control
over the copyright, then we'd never be able to change the license. But I
confess that I really don't know all of the legal ins and outs of this,
particularly when a company is involved (and a company with only one employee
no less - at least, I'm not aware of there being any other employees).

On a related note, what would happen to the dmd backend if Walter got run over
by a bus tomorrow? As I understand it, we have it because Walter made a deal
with Symantec. We can't even distribute it without his permission. So, it
seems like we'd lose the backend without him.

Now, I certainly hope that we have Walter around for a long time to come, but
if we're worrying about not being able to get ahold of people in the future to
be able to change licenses or whatnot, then it seems like a good question to
ask what happens if we lost Walter. Thanks to ldc and gdc, I don't think that
Walter represents a bus count of one for D, but we definitely want to make
sure that we don't risk losing D because of the loss of a few people.

- Jonathan M Davis