Real-World Copyright Assignment

[Greg Herlein]

> One project I was involved with was considering working some sort of one-time
> "click to agree to the provisions of the license" into the CVS or patch manager.

I thought these were considered unenforcable.  Can you really
give up rights from a click?  I know that contracts can legally
give up rights (even some promised uner the Constitution) but can
a click be a binding contractual agreement?  I'd be hesitant
about that.

> Ugh, I don't think you can.  Fool's errand, IMHO.  If you submit code to a
> project, you don't do it in expectation of future profits directly from the
> code.  Likely unworkable and unenforcable.

Which brings the next thorny issue:  suppose a contributor does
not want to assign his/her rights to you (perhaps thinking "what
do I get out of this, or perhaps opposing it on principle).  What
then?

What if that person then creates his/her own local version that
does include his.her patches, effectively forking the code?

> Anyone from TiVo on this list?  That's their situation with the Linux kernel
> exactly.  See http://www.tivo.com/linux/

Yes, Tivo released code.  Wasn't there a hubub about it though?

Greg