Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
On Thu, Jan 5, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Kay Hayen <kayhayen@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Hello Tanguy,
>
>
>> Although you are free to sell this program according to the terms of
>> the GPLv3, I would not like that, and this is why I chose this
>> license, that should make most attempts of doing so non-viable.
>> [or whatever similar text you may want to write]
>>
>> Since such a statement does not require anything, I think it should not
>> render your program non-free, just programs suggesting that the user may
>> thank the author by buying him a beer are free as long as this is a
>> suggestion and not a requirement.
>
>
> The interesting part is contribution copyright assignment. I actually do
> _not_ want Nuitka to have to stay GPLv3 when it's "ready". Then I
> _definitely_ want it to have another license, with "ASF2.0" being the
> current front runner.
I'm not a fan of copyright assignment, and would like to find (if
possible) a solution that gives you what you need without requiring
it. Requiring copyright assignment allows you to "pull an Oracle." I
mean no offense by that and I hope you understand my intent in saying
that.
Would it be possible to have, instead, a contributor agreement that
allows contributors to retain copyright while at the same time
granting you a non-transferable, non-revokable, exclusive right to
relicense their contribution under the ASF2.0 license at a time of
your choosing? This allows contributors to "know what they're getting
into." It allows you to transition smoothly from GPLv3 to ASF2.0 when
you feel the "time is right," while allowing contributors the comfort
of retaining copyright to their code, knowing that they will not later
face all their work being swallowed up as in, for example,
OpenSolaris.
This grant to you would be non-revokable (for your comfort) and
non-transferrable (for the contributor's comfort). It would be
exclusive to you as an agreement between you and the person submitting
code to you. Is this sort of thing even workable? I'd be interested
in the opinions d-l at large, as well.
--
Chris
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