[Ubuntu-bugcontrol] Please, consider reflecting on the Canonical Contributor Agreement

Stephen M. Webb stephen.webb at canonical.com
Sun Jan 11 14:52:49 UTC 2015


On 01/10/2015 01:19 PM, Michael Banck wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 05, 2015 at 10:01:49AM -0500, Stephen M. Webb wrote:
> 
> My understanding of the FSF/GNU copyright assignment is that in their
> part of the legal paperwork, they pledge to only relicense the code
> under a license of similar spirit.  So the above is FUD AFAICT.

Selling GPL exceptions is not disapproved of by RMS or the FSF; in fact they have even enouraged it.  Consider reading
Richard Stallman's essay on this at the FSF [1].

It is not FUD to say they could practice what they preach, not is it not FUD to point out they require total transfer of
ownership of the copyright (which mean, in my country, extinguishment of my own rights as author) as opposed to the
Canonical CLA, which only requires a license for the same rights the author continues to enjoy.  Those are simple facts
backed up by what the FSF themselves say publicly.

[1] https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions

-- 
Stephen M. Webb  <stephen.webb at canonical.com>



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