Re: Nuitka - GPLv3 plus contribution copyright assignment
Hello Tanguy,
thanks for breaking it down:
# If you (not Kay Hayen) submit patches
So far, this is a contributor agreement.
# or make the software
# available to licensors of this software in either form,
But here you are starting to add on the license, taking high risks
of making it non-free and requiring analysis by all the potential
distributors.
That was intentional. I want people to give "GPLv3" and "ASF2.0"
licenses for everything they give back to people they received the code
from, so it can reach me.
No need to except yourself: I do not see any problem in you requiring
yourself to give yourself a right to relicense your own code. :-)
I just don't want to be taken by the words of the license, that would
say, if I send a modification, it's ASF2.0. It being part of the notice
avoids that. Of course, it can be a separate notice too, where I explain
also why I do that.
Legally, it would appear like "dual licensing", right?
I do not think so. Dual licensing is usually understood as: pick the
license of your choice. Here, it rather sounds like a contributor
agreement: if you want to contribute, allow me to relicense your code
under the ASF.
On my mind, it should be possible to release all with "GPLv3+ASF2.0" and
let people pick. Right? That would be DSFG compliant for sure.
I therefore consider it to be possible to release everything under
"GPLv3" and apply "GPLv3+ASF2.0" for new code optionally, unless opted
out by removing the notice.
Much like with any dual license, one can opt out of the dual license
"GPLv3+ASF2.0" by removing either notice. Just as a hypothetical, as
long as the other thing is optional, it cannot violate DFSG, can it?
And I don't propose anything non-free at all. Defaulting to giving
people the "ASF2.0" rights when returning changed code, is not all
non-free. It's something "ASF2.0" itself asks for.
To me it appears logical. I must also admit, it's probably so, because I
don't have enough knowledge. Maybe dual licensing works different from
what I believe.
Honestly, I think it would be simpler to as add a simple comment stating
that you wish to relicense it later, and for that reason ask your
contributors to license their work under AFS rather than GPL if they
want you to integrate their work. As I described before, I do not think
that has any undesired effect in practice.
When I find code anywhere, say on the Debian BTS in patch form, how do
tell who owns the copyright? It's not normally traced, is it? A third
person may have created it without my knowledge. And I don't dream of
getting people to confirm me any better than "yeah yeah, ok" when asked,
if at all.
To be on the safe side, I would like people to modify the file in order
to opt out of "ASF 2.0" for new code, and then I only need to determine
if somebody removed the notice, and if he didn't can freely assume that
I can integrate the code.
The good about it is that the right thing happens by default. Asking
people to do something, sign something, keeping records, etc. is not a
burden I could carry. I am not an organization.
And in fact, once Nuitka as a whole is under "ASF2.0" only, it's the
same thing too. If somebody doesn't want to put his code under "ASF2.0"
and send it back, he has to remove the notice or express it somehow.
I think you should want to avoid making any modification to the license
at all, and adding a requirement for redistribution is such a
modification.
I attempted to address this by saying "or make the software available to
licensors". That is not redistribution, it is contributing back, when
you send the code to the source of your license, isn't it?
I think, my proposed statement is not even what I wrote about above,
it's only less. It's only that if you actively send it back to where it
came from that, I can take it under "ASF2.0" conditionals. It's not the
full "ASF2.0" and it doesn't limit GPLv3 rights, it only extends them.
Yours,
Kay
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