[Wolves] FSFE releases solution to increase legal strength of Free Software projects

[Shane M. Coughlan]

David wrote:
> <snip>
> Trying to avoid reading the license thing itself, i have the following
> questions :
> 
> I assume this would work in a similar way to e.g. the Linux kernel,
> where individual contributors would need to make some sort of
> declaration that they're the authors of $patch/$file etc, and then for
> each patch/file state they've assign copyright to $other_entity?
> Can such re-assignation of copyright occur 'automatically' due the
> contents of 'LICENSE.txt' which is bundled with the source code? Or
> would it need to be an explicit statement on each commit/patch?

Actually, in the case of copyright assignment like this you have to sign
a bit of paper saying something like "I, Bob, assign my copyright to
Dave."  The FLA is basically that bit of paper.

We need signatures on paper so there is a little bit of tree-felling and
ink usage involved.

If you were Linus and you wanted to use the FLA you could do the following:
 - Customise the FLA to assign copyright to [$FoundationName]
 - Get each Linux developer to sign a copy and post it to [$FoundationName]
 - Enjoy the benefits of having coherent copyright

</end tongue-in-cheek example>

Regards

Shane

-- 
Shane Coughlan
FTF Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
Office: +41435000366 ext 408 / Mobile: +41792633406
coughlan at fsfeurope.org
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