On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 08:48:24AM +0100, Mark wrote: > On Mon, Aug 18, 2003 at 11:45:51PM -0400, Bijan Soleymani wrote: > > > > From what I've read on the FSF website their position is that they won't > > accept any submissions unless they are: > > a) public domain > > b) copyright released to the FSF > > > > I don't know the specifics I haven't given them code, that's what they > > say in their docs. Now maybe they keep the copyright and give the > > programmer a license to do whatever they want, *but* they definately > > keep the copyright, *if* what they're saying is true at all. > > > > Maybe I'm missing something, but you seem to have changed your > position somewhat. If the FSF have the copyright to code, then it > is theirs, certainly, and they can determine what should be done with > it. In this instance, they apply the GPL, and anyone can read the > GPL. If you get GPLed code, you can change it and use it if you > want to with no obligation to do anything else[1], but yes, they still > own the copyright to their bit, and you have the copyright to your > bit. Yes it seems as though I'm guilty of something like that. My point was that the FSF wouldn't hire someone unless they could obtain copyright on the work he/she would do for them. The fact that they license the code back to people through a generous license is just them being nice. They don't *have* to do it. They're just nice people :) Similarly a proprietary software vendor wouldn't hire people to write software if he couldn't obtain the copyright on the code they write. Now the consequences of this are different than the FSF case. In the FSF case since they GPL the code the own a copyright on, the employee is free to extend it afterwards. In the proprietary software vendor case since the software is proprietary the employee can't do anything. But in both cases the employer owns the copyright. Bijan
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