[darcs-users] Re: how to redistribute darcs+Eclipse

[Thomas Zander]

On Wednesday 8 June 2005 07:46, Ketil Malde wrote:
> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen at xemacs.org> writes:
> >     Ketil> I would then suggest that emails are sufficient, at least
> >     Ketil> from authors of relatively minor contributions
> >
> > Unfortunately, current US copyright law means that there are _no_
> > minor contributions, unless $30,000--$150,000 statutory damages per
> > infringement (which might be construed to mean per version released,
> > for example) is minor.
>
> Well - I was sorta hoping that if David (or another maintainer) could
> show that we acted in good faith, and remedied the infringement
> (i.e. removed offending code) in a timely manner, that would be
> sufficient.  "Minor" would then be something that could be easily
> replaced or removed.
>
> It seems you're saying that if I create a patch and e-mail it to the
> list (but cleverly avoid mentioning any licensing) and the patch gets
> included, I can just wait around and collect?

Using the GPL this is all not really relevant; as soon as I _use_ the GPL-ed 
application I agree to it (says so in the license) and as soon as I sent 
out a patch it has to be under the GPL.  So this scheme can not happen at 
all using GPL.
If, however, somewhere down the road my patch was relicensed to (for 
example) the apache license, I have the right to sue. Yes.
I a copyright case the burdon of proof still lies with the one suing, but if 
I assigned copyright to David, and David had no simple way to prove I did 
so, he'd be bankrupt within a week due to the way these things tend to 
work.
This is the reason why I said you need a paper signature and all that to 
state the copyright transfer.  It has nothing to do with how you could 
prove it in the end; it has everything to do with the problem getting 
settled within days of the complaint.

Another fine example of why you want to use the GPL.

-- 
Thomas Zander
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