Re: Potential LSR licensing violations

[Luca Fascione]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2022 at 7:40 AM Jean Abou Samra <jean@abou-samra.fr> wrote:

> Le 20/10/2022 à 07:22, Werner LEMBERG a écrit :
>
> It would be a problem if we assigned copyright to the FSF.
> As you mentioned below, we don't do this.
>
> > [*] Here comes the benefit of transferring the copyright to the FSF,
> >      which can handle such things without having to ask the original
> >      author AFAIK.  LilyPond, however, inspite of being a GNU project,
> >      doesn't ask contributors for such a copyright transfer.
>

I would think it to be a more sustainable way forward to assign the
copyright
of contributions to the Lilypond project itself (or a similar entity, in
charge of the project
but not linked to the identity of one or more specific individuals).

Some folks use a statement like "Copyright 2012, 2016-2019 The contributors
of the Lilypond Project", for example.

This has two kinds of advantages: one is that in instances like this where
it becomes sensible to
re-license some content, this can be done in a way that is transparent and
doesn't necessitate
tracking down specific individuals. (At the moment this list is where these
discussion would happen,
so the archives will provide a mean to track down when and how a given
decision was made).

The other advantage is that it provides better insulation for the
individual contributing persons
against non-benevolent external parties that might show up to assert rights
they might think
they have (rightfully or not). Classic example would be patent rights
infringement.
Although Lilypond is not a commercial project, nor it is a particularly big
one (so it's
unlikely to attract attention from unsavory characters),  I do feel it
would be a good ethical
standard to apply on the part of the project managers and owners to try and
insulate the contributors
from potential unpleasantness.

I repeat my disclaimer: Although I have been part of extensive discussions
on this topic,
I am not a lawyer, and my words do not constitute legal advice.

Luca

-- 
Luca Fascione