Open source, contributions and copyright

senaus · Post by **senaus** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 1:29 pm

Good evening everyone! I've got a little query about intellectual property for you to ponder.

My project is open source, for the sole reason of encouraging patches and contributions. The problem is, i'd like to keep full copyright ownership.

I've produced a draft notice, and i'm wondering if it would be any use in addressing my concerns. You can find it here:
http://dyknl.sourceforge.net/wiki/Intellectual_Property

A little feedback from someone more familiar with law would be of great help.

thanks, senaus

mathematician · Post by **mathematician** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 1:46 pm

If you want to keep copyright of the code you have written all you have to do is put a copyright notice on it. However, I would say that the following is a definite off put-er:

By contributing code, documentation or any other material to the project, you (the developer) are hence implying agreement to the transfer of ownership of all intellectual property to Sean David Micklethwaite. Any material for which you are not the copyright owner will be rejected.

I might buy that if somebody was going to give me a nice fat pay cheque at the end of the month, but why should I work for nothing and then hand over the copyright in what I had written to you? If you wanted other people to become involved on a voluntary basis I think it would have to be in the spirit of partnership; not employer/employee.

senaus · Post by **senaus** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:47 pm

It probably would put off quite a few developers, yes, but the idea is that users can submit patches and improvements, and the community still feels the benefit because my project is free software; similar perhaps to how the Free Software Foundation owns the copyright to a few prominent free software projects.

The reason i want to hold copyright over the entire project is that this gives me the future option to add commercial licenses, without having to contact every contributor for approval. I'm not sure if there is another way of doing this (shared copyright perhaps?), i just don't know enough yet!

Another idea i had is that where the developer 'releases' their contributions to me under a permanent license, which allows me to relicense and redistribute the code as i please. I don't know if this is possible.

Thanks,
Senaus

mathematician · Post by **mathematician** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 3:59 pm

What is to stop people just writing whatever extensions they like to your system with or without your permission. That is what happens with commercial operating systems after all. It's what happens with Linux for that matter.

The reason i want to hold copyright over the entire project is that this gives me the future option to add commercial licenses, without having to contact every contributor for approval. I'm not sure if there is another way of doing this (shared copyright perhaps?), i just don't know enough yet!

That is exactly why nobody is going to sign up to it. They do the work, and you retain the right to reap the rewards of their work by issuing commercial licences!

Alboin · Post by **Alboin** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:00 pm

Don't some GPL projects do something like this? Where they transfer all rights over to the FSF?

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:20 pm

Also, if I remember correctly that might never hold up in a court for the reason being that to transfer your copyright to someone else you have to use a signed document. I think this document also has to have a certain legal structure to make it valid also.

You also might be trying to put a leg cast on a simple cut and scape. A better way (if possible) might be to enter the contributor into a agreement to allow you to have certain rights to their submissions having the effects of: still leaving them as copyright holders, allowing you exclusive usage of their contribution, and allowing your self to enter into some terms that force you to give them attribution when their work is used inside your project.

You could also define a certain percentage of profit to be returned to the contributors if you for instance went commercial and made a profit. As in saying that five percent of the profit would be evenly distributed to the contributors - but for that to be written in a legally sound manner would require a professional lawyer, I would imagine.

Also profit is (I think should be) defined by the excess money (after paying the costs), which should be after paying your self since you have to eat and sleep somewhere. It has to be treated very seriously since if you have bad intentions you will most likely end up on the inside of a prison cell somewhere. So not really a recommended way to have your project setup but it does seem like a interesting way to do it if you really wanted to be serious about the whole idea.

mathematician · Post by **mathematician** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 4:29 pm

Kevin McGuire wrote: You could also define a certain percentage of profit to be returned to the contributors if you for instance went commercial and made a profit. As in saying that five percent of the profit would be evenly distributed to the contributors - but for that to be written in a legally sound manner would require a professional lawyer, I would imagine.

Five percent of the profits go to (say) 100 contributors, and the other 95% goes to number one? I don't think so. If you took your masterpiece along to a commercial software house you could expect (and get) twenty percent on the sale price.

Kevin McGuire · Post by **Kevin McGuire** » Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:45 pm

mathematician:
I just made another thread to continue the conversation if it turned into a longer than expected one, and to help this thread stay on topic.
See:
http://www.osdev.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=14152

senaus · Post by **senaus** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:26 pm

Thanks for the detailed replies guys, certainly heavy thinking. If only this licensing stuff was as fun as programming, eh? We'd all be young Bills...

Back to the point:

What is to stop people just writing whatever extensions they like to your system with or without your permission. That is what happens with commercial operating systems after all. It's what happens with Linux for that matter.

Yes, that would be allowed under the GPL. The point is I own the copyright, so the derived work will be GPL forever.

You also might be trying to put a leg cast on a simple cut and scape. A better way (if possible) might be to enter the contributor into a agreement to allow you to have certain rights to their submissions having the effects of: still leaving them as copyright holders, allowing you exclusive usage of their contribution, and allowing your self to enter into some terms that force you to give them attribution when their work is used inside your project.

That's probably the best idea, the problem is I'd need to draw up this license before accepting contributions from anyone. I wouldn't expect (or accept) huge contributions Linux-style, what I'm talking about is minor bug fixes. Surely a bug fix amending a few lines of source doesn't warrant royalty payments?

When, and if, I decide to license my kernel commercially, I'd certainly seek proper legal advice. That's not something I can afford right now though!

Thanks,
Senaus