[License-discuss] Copyright Free Software Foundation, but license not GPL

[John Sullivan]

Robin Winning <robin.winning at cyaninc.com> writes:

> Hi All,
> I am a contracts manager at software company, and in addition to doing
> contracts, I now find myself reviewing the licenses associated with
> the open source packages my company has acquired. I have become quite
> familiar with the GPL/LGPL/AGPL suite of licenses, as well as the
> other, permissive licenses: MIT, BSD, etc. Here's my question: quite
> frequently, the programmer makes the Free Software Foundation the
> copyright holder, but then attaches a license that is not in the GPL
> family. Is that a valid combination?
>

It can be, yes. Some packages whose copyrights are held by the FSF are
distributed under other licenses. There is actually no intrinsic
connection between the GPL and the FSF holding the copyright or vice
versa.

However, it is not valid for someone to just say "Copyright Free
Software Foundation" on their code without actually having a
conversation with us about it (although we appreciate the sentiment). :)
We don't actually hold the copyright unless the author has signed an
agreement with us transferring it.

If you write to assign at gnu.org with more information about the code, we
can confirm whether we actually hold the copyright. 

-john

-- 
John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation
GPG Key: 61A0963B | http://status.fsf.org/johns | http://fsf.org/blogs/RSS

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