Re: [ECOS] Are copyright assignments detrimental to eCos?

[Markus Schaber <schabi at logix-tt dot com>]

Hi, Alex,

Alex Schuilenburg <alexs@ecoscentric.com> wrote:

> eCosPro is certainly not closed source and most of the code is under the 
> same GPL+ex license as eCos.  Everyone who receives eCosPro receives the 
> full source code.  Sure, we provide additional functionality under a 
> different source license with our eCosPro distributions, but there is 
> nothing wrong in earning a buck from our work.

I fully agree here.

> Also, GPL+ex code always 
> stays GPL+ex. There is no way we or anyone else can ship the code under 
> any other license. Any contribution of yours would stay open source 
> whatever - we and the community would welcome your contribution.

That does not hold true in case of FSF-Style copright assignments. I
don't know the eCos assignment clauses exactly, but the FSF-Style
assignments allow the FSF to relicense the code under every license
they want. The official reason is that they can update the code to
newer GPL releases, and that works well as long as the FSF stays on the
"good" side.


And, while I'm nit-picking, one could always remove the linker
exception, redistributing the whole under plain GPL. :-)


> I'm also intrigued by your attitude regarding contributions. Do you also 
> withhold contributions if the code could be used by some evil regime or 
> for some purpose which you don't agree with? In fact every commercial 
> company that uses eCos more than likely makes money from it because they 
> don't have to pay license fees or royalties, and not many contribute 
> anything back. That is one of the things about free open source - you 
> don't have much control of how people use your contributions.

Yes, you don't have much control. Using copylefted licenses is one way
to retain a little of those control. And copyright assignmend
undermines that copyleft, at least for one privileged institution.

That's the policy of logix-tt, for "substantial" contributions, and not
necessarily my personal one.

> Neither the eCos GPL nor the LGPL force any code to be published. It 
> requires that you make the sources available to any code recipient who 
> requests it and even allows you to make a nominal charge to cover costs 
> for providing the code. Some organisations just choose to publish the 
> code to avoid dealing with such requests.

When nitpicking, putting the sourcecode on a public server alone would
not fulfil the exact worded requirements of GPL V2 (at least when the
binary was distributed another way), but in practice, it fulfilled the
spirit of the GPL, and I know of no case where somebody complained.
This was fixed in GPL V3.

> > eCoscentric provides a free eCos Pro kit for the Nios processor,
> > which anyone can download. This would mean that all GPL files in
> > the kit are free to be merged with the open CVS. Or is there some
> > other catch ...?
> You cannot contribute something which you do not own, namely the 
> copyright, irrespective of what license the code is distributed under 
> (GPL, LGPL, GPL+ex).

This is the policy of the eCos maintainers, they won't accept anything
into the open CVS without copyright assignment.

Of yourse, you could take the burden and fork your own eCos tree, where
you can include anything you want (given that you don't violate the
licenses). LLVM is going this way, and EGCS was going it some time ago.
But it's always a big burden, and small projects like eCos should not
get lost in divergence.

Regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Schaber | Logical Tracking&Tracing International AG
Dipl. Inf.     | Software Development GIS

Fight against software patents in Europe! www.ffii.org
www.nosoftwarepatents.org

-- 
Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos
and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss