> It means you are prohibited from using your own code except as how the FSF sees fit. That's what copyright assignment means.
The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions.
> So what, exactly benefit do I gain by submitting code to the FSF, and assigning copyright?
Because they'll enforce the GPL on your behalf. I assigned copyright for my GNU project to the FSF for that reason: I have no resources for enforcement. Nor do most people.
> e.g my own project: FreeRADIUS. At this point, I've written at least half of the code. If there's a licence violation, I don't need anyone else's permission (or copyright assignment) to go after the violators.
If there's a violation with _your code_.
If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, you have no standing. And _this_ is why the FSF wants full copyright over Emacs.
I hope parent commentor clarifies this: do you still get to claim a fork of your contributed code as copyrighted to yourself? The standing problem goes both ways; if you distributed your fork but you had licensed it from the FSF, won't you lack standing from unauthorized use?
So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code? If only there were a mechanism for reaching that other code, so you could defend it...
Oh, wait. Perhaps if those contributors assigned their copyright to you under a very permissive contract...
I don't understand the confusion here. It's not rocket science.
> So you concede that it doesn't matter if you wrote over half the code?
There's just no way you can conclude that from my comments. I explicitely said I could enforce copyright on my code, even if it's only half of the project.
Again, the comment I was replying to said this:
> If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over,
Does no one see the logical contradiction in that statement?
YOUR code that YOU DON'T OWN.
Uh... then it's not MY CODE, is it? Is that really that hard to figure out?
I'll explain using simple examples, as people apparently aren't getting it.
* If a third-party contributor to my project re-uses his own code elsewhere, I don't care. It's his code.
* If someone violates copyright on a third-party contributors code, again, I don't really care. He's responsible for enforcing copyright on his code. I'm not.
* And if he's contributing code to my project, I'm pretty sure that code is integrated into my project, and is largely useless outside of it. So the odds of a violation of just his code are pretty small.
* If someone infringes on the project as a whole, then I own copyright to the majority, and I can enforce my copyright, independent of anyone else.
* [edit] And if I submit code to the FSF and assign copyright to them, then it's their responsibility to enforce copyright... because they own the copyright. And yes, I have no standing.
Is that clear? Can people please stop down-voting me for pointing out logical inconsistencies?
The FSF copyright assignment grants you back the right to do what you wish with your code, including sell exceptions.
> So what, exactly benefit do I gain by submitting code to the FSF, and assigning copyright?
Because they'll enforce the GPL on your behalf. I assigned copyright for my GNU project to the FSF for that reason: I have no resources for enforcement. Nor do most people.
> e.g my own project: FreeRADIUS. At this point, I've written at least half of the code. If there's a licence violation, I don't need anyone else's permission (or copyright assignment) to go after the violators.
If there's a violation with _your code_.
If someone uses a portion of your code you don't have copyright over, you have no standing. And _this_ is why the FSF wants full copyright over Emacs.