Re: Thoughts triggered by these NeXTbuntu guys

[Chris Vetter]

On 2006-08-30 08:31:01 +0200 Jeremy Tregunna <jtregunna@blurgle.ca> 
wrote:
> > Then if we get a person who is able to contribute there is another  
> > thing
> > that I consider the second most important problem - the copyright
> > assignment to FSF.

Amen to that.

> > This topic deserves another message with a different subject line,
> > here I can only say that it presents a natural obstacle for people  
> > who,
> > like me, wants their work to be recognized by others.
> > Thus the Nextbuntu's idea on removing this requirement seems to me
> > quite appealing.
> This I'm not so sure about. For a large project, requiring code to be 
> copyright assigned to a neutral third party (or if run by committee,  
> that 
> group) can save you from cases where someone might get all pissy  and 
> decide 
> they want to revoke distribution privileges for all their  code 
> they've 
> contributed, setting the project back potentially many  months. If 
> you don't 
> want to assign copyright, you don't have to --  you can maintain a 
> separate 
> patchset outside of GNUstep. But please,  don't confuse assigning 
> copyright 
> to the FSF as not getting credit.  All you have to do is look through 
> the 
> GNUstep source code, and  you'll see "written by..." even if the 
> module has 
> been rewritten,  you'll usually see a "original implementation by 
> ..."; 
> credit is given.

There are people out there who WANT to contribute to GNUstep directly 
(like adding missing classes) and do NOT want to offer a separate 
patchset (because it may not make much sense) and do NOT want to sign 
the copyright thingy, not because they fear not getting credit but 
simply because they do not want to SIGN anything.

--
Chris