Proprietary software for Linux

[Bruce Perens]

From: Mark Wells <mark at pc-intouch.com>
> Legally these contributors are probably considered to be assigning their
> rights to the copyright holder.

Not at all. They are all individually copyright holders as long as their
contribution is non-trivial (over 10 lines), and any one of them can sue
for infringement, or they can do it together.

Assignment of copyright doesn't happen unless you deliberately write down
and sign that you are assigning the copyright. It does not happen by
contributing a modification to GPL software.

> If I contribute
> code to a project that's under the GPL, I'm doing it with the
> understanding that the GPL will protect my code.  There might be an
> implied contract here.

> If I'm *not* assigning my rights to the copyright holder, then I'm
> licensing my own code under the GPL, and if I can show that any of it made
> it into the part of the project that's in dispute, I have standing as a
> copyright holder.

Right. You can be the one to sue, but if your code can be "written out"
easily it is to your advantage to band together with other copyright
holders to make a stronger case.

	Thanks

	Bruce