[dmd-internals] DMD copyright assignment

Leandro Lucarella via dmd-internals dmd-internals at puremagic.com
Wed Jun 25 07:21:30 PDT 2014


Andrei Alexandrescu, el 25 de June a las 07:04 me escribiste:
> On 6/25/14, 6:21 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >On 6/25/14, 6:19 AM, Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> >>Why? I still don't get it. All the rest makes no sense at all unless you
> >>can answer that question.
> >
> >I care for his peace of mind enough to do him a small favor. -- Andrei
> 
> To better put this in context of my previous rant (sorry): I've
> transferred copyright for much less reason and to entities I'm much
> less aligned with.

What you're still not getting is this is completely beyond the point. I
did that too, I'm just not telling it because is irrelevant to the
discussion. I would happily cede some rights to the FSF because there is
a reason for it. You just have to give me a reason to do the same with
Digital Mars, not just tell me to which horrible institutions you had to
cede your rights to.

And you have to do it in the context of what's best for D, as David put
it.


> Walter is literally the only representative whom I could fight on
> this; he'd sit down and stoically answer challenges, has no lawyers to
> do his bidding, and has not once alluded to ceasing cooperation (as
> said lawyers sure would as a simple recourse). I'd be quite a special
> kind of an asshole if I'd pick a matter with Walter only because I
> could.

And it's not that. I'm sure you got some money for your other ceded
rights, and it was your choice to do so. You negotiated, the same way
me and other people are negotiating with you and Walter now, even when
this time is not about money.

> >Walter, this is by far the least important point in that e-mail,
> >please read it all and respond to all the points, or at least the
> >most important ones to justify your desire to require copyright
> >assignment.
> 
> It's likely you have signed a number of agreements in which you're
> giving up something: conference talks, contracts, and entering
> Facebook's campus last year. DConf 2013 didn't ask for a copyright
> release form for your talk's video, but many conferences do.

Of course I do, I never said I didn't. But I chose to do so based on
cost-benefit. If I think I'm being asked to cede rights without a good
reason is very likely that I won't do it. And as David said, I know the
community, and Walter, so there is a chance I would do it anyway. But
I'm not so certain other individuals and companies will be willing to do
that, and as David said you are closing doors for potential
contributions without any reasonable reason (pardon the redundancy).

> My question is, in how many instances did you challenge the
> representative to answer all concerns you had over the contract? In

VERY often.

> how many cases did you ask for justification of their desire to have
> you sign the release? And if so how did that work for you?

In all of them (at least when I was aware I was ceding any rights, I
don't remember the case of DConf2013 videos for example). I even
resigned from a job because they wanted to change the contract terms to
much more unfair terms, and I removed some accounts for some services
for the same reason.

I don't know, maybe I'm just a crazy guy that read contracts and ask
them to be fixed when they are wrong...

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
¿Pero cómo? ¿Todavía votan?
	-- Sidharta Kiwi


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