[dmd-internals] DMD copyright assignment

[Mathias Lang via dmd-internals]

2014-06-24 18:46 GMT-07:00 Andrei Alexandrescu via dmd-internals <
dmd-internals at puremagic.com>:
>
> I've done a lot "worse" in the past. All of my books are copyrighted by
> Addison-Wesley Longman. My name is on two patents owned by Facebook. Most
> articles I wrote are copyrighted by whoever published them. All of my
> videos are copyrighted by the respective organizations and events, some of
> which I believe are stereotypically evil corporations. All were a lot of
> hard work. Some of these were paid for, but most not. Had I started a
> debate like this with them, their lawyers would have probably ceased the
> collaboration and everybody would have been worse off, and most of all the
> "greater good". Being liberal about making my work available and letting
> credit reach me instead of obsessing over it may as well be the best policy
> I've held throughout my career.
>

Everything you mentioned is common practice. Giving CA for OSS code to a
non-public, one man organization is not.
I think everyone interested in D, even the most modest contributors like
myself, have faith in Walter's good intentions, and from my understanding
nobody challenged him on that, but rather exposed his argument of the
potential disappearing contributor under a new light.

I would myself, if I were to make a contribution to DMD, apply to any CA,
but I don't support it. As David outlined in his brief email, you are
trying to shield D against an issue that has the same probability than a
Tsunami in Colorado. Would Boost be challenged by a judge, and no
re-licensing option be available, this would be a major disaster for the
whole OSS community, as well as countless companies. Now, trying to prevent
this, while pointless, would probably be okay for most people it didn't add
restrictions and prevent some contributions from new contributors, external
code, contributors from companies...


I'm out of this discussion. I'll let Walter decide. If he decides to forgo
> potential contributions from people afraid he'll steal their work, so be it.
>
> If we didn't reach a mutual understanding at this point, I don't see us
reaching in a near future, so that's probably the best thing to do, unless
Walter wants to continue this debate.
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