Proprietary software for Linux

[Mark Wells]

On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, David Starner wrote:

> I don't believe you assign your rights to the copyright holder unless you have
> a contract that says that. On one extreme a patch that fixes a simple

If that's the case, then my patch that fixes a typo is mine even after it
gets folded into the source tree, and I have standing as a co-author of
the program if anyone violates the license.

Anyway, transfers of copyright don't require a formal
contract--work-for-hire is an obvious counterexample.

> The FSF demands copyright transfers to solve part of this problem for their 
> program. OTOH, they also give a contract that gives you the right to sue
> them for taking a program proprietary, too.

That's the implied contract I was talking about: as long as I'm assured
that the original author (or anyone else who's trying to issue a license
on the project, like FSF) will enforce the license, I have no problem
giving up the copyright on my contribution.