[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[James Bottomley]

Regardless of the outcome of the GPL defence thread, I think we do
mostly agree that distributed copyright ownership is useful in Linux,
so I'd like to propose a practical topic on how individual developers
can achieve this.  I'm afraid this will mostly be US centric (since
that's where I've worked), but there's no reason we can't use similar
techniques in other jurisdictions.  I've used three techniques over my
career:

   1. Invention Disclosure Exceptions
   2. Separate agreements for Copyright ownership (useful because they can
      be negotiated even after you sign an employment agreement)
   3. Modifications to the employment agreement itself.

I can describe each of these and the negotiating process, which will
give real world examples for others to use.

In many ways, this would also be a good plumbers topic, but I can be
much more frank in the closed day of kernel summit which is why it
would be good to have the discussion there.

James

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Daniel Vetter]

On Sun, Aug 28, 2016 at 7:00 PM, James Bottomley
<James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
> Regardless of the outcome of the GPL defence thread, I think we do
> mostly agree that distributed copyright ownership is useful in Linux,
> so I'd like to propose a practical topic on how individual developers
> can achieve this.  I'm afraid this will mostly be US centric (since
> that's where I've worked), but there's no reason we can't use similar
> techniques in other jurisdictions.  I've used three techniques over my
> career:
>
>    1. Invention Disclosure Exceptions
>    2. Separate agreements for Copyright ownership (useful because they can
>       be negotiated even after you sign an employment agreement)
>    3. Modifications to the employment agreement itself.
>
> I can describe each of these and the negotiating process, which will
> give real world examples for others to use.
>
> In many ways, this would also be a good plumbers topic, but I can be
> much more frank in the closed day of kernel summit which is why it
> would be good to have the discussion there.

I'm very much interested in this. I think on top of what you're
proposing we should look into making an official recommendation about
the ks attendee's stance on this, maybe something the TAB could do if
we reach some useful consensus. I've also heard that there's people
working on example contracts/clauses already too, again something the
TAB could engage in after ks. At least I believe this will be a lot
easier to negotiate if we make it a collective effort.
-Daniel
-- 
Daniel Vetter
Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
+41 (0) 79 365 57 48 - http://blog.ffwll.ch

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Steven Rostedt]

[ Cc'd some that are not on this list ]

On Sun, 28 Aug 2016 10:00:54 -0700
James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:

> Regardless of the outcome of the GPL defence thread, I think we do
> mostly agree that distributed copyright ownership is useful in Linux,
> so I'd like to propose a practical topic on how individual developers
> can achieve this.  I'm afraid this will mostly be US centric (since
> that's where I've worked), but there's no reason we can't use similar
> techniques in other jurisdictions.  I've used three techniques over my
> career:
> 
>    1. Invention Disclosure Exceptions
>    2. Separate agreements for Copyright ownership (useful because they can
>       be negotiated even after you sign an employment agreement)
>    3. Modifications to the employment agreement itself.

I'd like to know more details of each of theses items.

> 
> I can describe each of these and the negotiating process, which will
> give real world examples for others to use.
> 
> In many ways, this would also be a good plumbers topic, but I can be
> much more frank in the closed day of kernel summit which is why it
> would be good to have the discussion there.
> 

After reading 80% of the GPL thread (it grows quicker than I can read
it), I was about to propose a "How to handle GPL infractions without
going nuclear" topic. One that would explicitly state, the topic would
not be about taking someone to court or even threatening a lawsuit.
That would make the topic non-legal and would not require everyone
bringing their own lawyer and beer. But it would discuss other ways to
handle a case where you know someone is in violation to your GPL work.
A lot of developers don't have the connections to influence a company,
or even the ability to start the conversation. We're not all a Greg KH.

Perhaps developers would want an organization like the Conservancy to
do the work for them. Perhaps those same developers can explicitly
state that they do not want to threaten lawsuits, but want to just find
a way to work with those companies and have them comply. It would be up
to the developers to decide when to go the legal route. In fact, the
Conservancy could work to convince the developers not to bring up
lawsuits, as Linus and Greg have mentioned that could make working
together in the future much more difficult. It sounds like the
Conservancy will listen to what we have to say at the Summit. A
discussion is a two-way street.

I think the GPL thread proved that there is a lot of misunderstanding
among the participants. Face-to-face discussions are much better, and
heated discussions like the GPL thread seldom get resolved over email.

I was one of the people that talked with Karen Sandler at LinuxCon, and
I recommended to her that if she wanted to speak at KernelSummit, that
she must go through the proper route and propose the topic on this
list. She went ahead and followed our rules, and that thread become the
largest of all the topics that have been proposed so far. Which to me
shows that there's a huge interest in what she has to say. Or at least
an interest in the topic itself.

When talking with Karen, it appeared to me that she just wanted to hear
what the kernel developers had to say. I know some people think it's
just a way to give her a soap box to stand on in front of the kernel
developers. My impression I got from Karen, was more of a way to give
the soap box to the kernel developers to express what they want to the
Conservancy. I'd like to have this discussion, and I do believe the
Kernel Summit is the proper venue for it. This is more of a process
topic, and KS has turned into a process conference over the last few
years.

If the topic is simply a discussion on how to handle GPL violations
without having to resort to legal actions, one doesn't need to be a
lawyer to have that talk. As Linus says, once a lawsuit is mentioned,
everyone turns into a turtle and hides in their shell. Lets have this
discussion not about having lawsuits but still getting companies to
comply to the GPL with diplomacy. I think that talk would be extremely
educational.

-- Steve

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[James Bottomley]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 09:07 -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> [ Cc'd some that are not on this list ]
> 
> On Sun, 28 Aug 2016 10:00:54 -0700
> James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
> 
> > Regardless of the outcome of the GPL defence thread, I think we do
> > mostly agree that distributed copyright ownership is useful in 
> > Linux, so I'd like to propose a practical topic on how individual
> > developers can achieve this.  I'm afraid this will mostly be US 
> > centric (since that's where I've worked), but there's no reason we 
> > can't use similar techniques in other jurisdictions.  I've used 
> > three techniques over my career:
> > 
> >    1. Invention Disclosure Exceptions
> >    2. Separate agreements for Copyright ownership (useful because
> > they can
> >       be negotiated even after you sign an employment agreement)
> >    3. Modifications to the employment agreement itself.
> 
> I'd like to know more details of each of theses items.

Yes, judging by the offlist email I got about this, so would a lot of
people.  A lot of people also don't want to go on the record as even
being interested in this ...

The problem is that these are all end products of two party
negotiations which most of the other parties want kept confidential.  I
can't just bring them out in a public forum like Plumbers and, without
seeing the documents, that makes the discussion a lot less useful.

Let me see what I can get permission to do in an open forum.

> > I can describe each of these and the negotiating process, which 
> > will give real world examples for others to use.
> > 
> > In many ways, this would also be a good plumbers topic, but I can 
> > be much more frank in the closed day of kernel summit which is why 
> > it would be good to have the discussion there.
> > 
[...]

The rest of this is a bit offtopic (it would be on topic in the GPL
defence thread).  However, all I will say is that at the moment, if you
don't own copyrights on your own contributions to Linux (and if you
took no actions to make this happen, you likely don't), you have no
legal standing in any GPL enforcement and a court would likely not even
bother listening to your opinion.

Our current community is the community of technical contributors to
linux, but set of people with legal standing to be listened to in GPL
enforcement seems to be orders of magnitude smaller.  This is a pretty
bad state of affairs, which it seems worth discussing and giving people
the tools to remedy.

It's somewhat like voting reform: I want to give people the right to be
franchised in these discussions.  How they want to vote once they get
the franchise is a separate issue entirely.

James

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Steven Rostedt]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:54:22 -0700
James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:


> The rest of this is a bit offtopic (it would be on topic in the GPL

Sorry for hijacking your thread ;-)

> defence thread).  However, all I will say is that at the moment, if you
> don't own copyrights on your own contributions to Linux (and if you
> took no actions to make this happen, you likely don't), you have no
> legal standing in any GPL enforcement and a court would likely not even
> bother listening to your opinion.

Personally, I have a small amount of copyrights in the kernel that were
done while I was self employed. But a lot more belong to my current
employer. I have mixed feelings about trying to own those. One, I trust
my current employer with those copyrights, and two, they paid me to do
that code. It was never done "on my own time". I don't feel right
trying to claim copyright for code I was paid for, even if it was all
my idea to create.

But that may not be the case in the future, and I would like to know my
options.

-- Steve

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Jiri Kosina]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016, Steven Rostedt wrote:

> Personally, I have a small amount of copyrights in the kernel that were 
> done while I was self employed. But a lot more belong to my current 
> employer. I have mixed feelings about trying to own those. One, I trust 
> my current employer with those copyrights, and two, they paid me to do 
> that code. It was never done "on my own time". I don't feel right trying 
> to claim copyright for code I was paid for, even if it was all my idea 
> to create.
> 
> But that may not be the case in the future, and I would like to know my 
> options.

Just for the sake of completness, the situation is quite dramatically 
different in US (where the jurisdiction system is based on common law, 
which means that employer indeed owns the copyright in work created by 
employees), whereas in civil law systems, it's usually legally impossible 
to assign the moral rights away from the actual person creating the work 
(the employer just usually owns a licence to the economic rights).

If there is any kind of session at KS about this matter, this aspect 
should be taken into account.

Thanks,

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Johannes Berg]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 20:32 +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote:

> Just for the sake of completness, the situation is quite
> dramatically different in US (where the jurisdiction system is based
> on common law, which means that employer indeed owns the copyright in
> work created by employees), whereas in civil law systems, it's
> usually legally impossible to assign the moral rights away from the
> actual person creating the work (the employer just usually owns a
> licence to the economic rights).

*exclusive* license. That's an important distinction.

> If there is any kind of session at KS about this matter, this aspect 
> should be taken into account.
> 

I'm not really sure it matters *that* much. Where you'd negotiate "own
copyright and give $company the regular license (perhaps plus some
extra license to use it as non-GPL, or some covenant not to sue, or
such)" in the US, you'd have to negotiate "own economic rights [...]"
in other jurisdictions.

Much of the negotiation leading up to that will be very similar,
presumably.

johannes

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[James Bottomley]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 20:47 +0200, Johannes Berg wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 20:32 +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote:
> 
> > Just for the sake of completness, the situation is quite
> > dramatically different in US (where the jurisdiction system is
> > based
> > on common law, which means that employer indeed owns the copyright
> > in
> > work created by employees), whereas in civil law systems, it's
> > usually legally impossible to assign the moral rights away from the
> > actual person creating the work (the employer just usually owns a
> > licence to the economic rights).
> 
> *exclusive* license. That's an important distinction.

Indeed: even under jurisdictions which make a distinction between
economic and moral rights (only the former being assignable), an
exclusive licence becomes the equivalent of ownership.  You certainly
can't use residual moral rights to enforce a licence like the GPL
because that's mostly about economic rights.

> > If there is any kind of session at KS about this matter, this 
> > aspect should be taken into account.
> > 
> 
> I'm not really sure it matters *that* much. Where you'd negotiate 
> "own copyright and give $company the regular license (perhaps plus 
> some extra license to use it as non-GPL, or some covenant not to sue, 
> or such)" in the US, you'd have to negotiate "own economic rights 
> [...]" in other jurisdictions.
> 
> Much of the negotiation leading up to that will be very similar,
> presumably.

Exactly: to be a party to GPL enforcement, you still need to retain
some of the economic rights ownership you likely gave away in your
employment contract.

I suspect the eventual contract may look different. The problem in
Europe is that the concept of ownership of the work is usually tied to
the moral rights, so you can't give it up (even if you give up
effective ownership when you sign away the economic rights).  In the US
negotiation is definitely over ownership and what you usually end up
with is so called undivided partial ownership, which gives either party
full rights to enforce and sublicense.   I think, although never having
had to negotiate this type of agreement in europe I'm not really
experienced, that you'd need to negotiate to the point where each party
has a non-exclusive licence with the right to sublicense to have some
sort of equivalence.

Is there someone who's done this in Europe?

James

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Jiri Kosina]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016, James Bottomley wrote:

> > > Just for the sake of completness, the situation is quite 
> > > dramatically different in US (where the jurisdiction system is based 
> > > on common law, which means that employer indeed owns the copyright 
> > > in work created by employees), whereas in civil law systems, it's 
> > > usually legally impossible to assign the moral rights away from the 
> > > actual person creating the work (the employer just usually owns a 
> > > licence to the economic rights).
> > 
> > *exclusive* license. That's an important distinction.
> 
> Indeed: even under jurisdictions which make a distinction between
> economic and moral rights (only the former being assignable), an
> exclusive licence becomes the equivalent of ownership.  You certainly
> can't use residual moral rights to enforce a licence like the GPL
> because that's mostly about economic rights.

Yes, but economic rights can be assigned even in the other direction of 
course. I've seen contracts which made it possible for an employee to 
request an assignment of economic rights back in individual cases / for 
individual creations.

Of course, it's ultimately still employer's decision whether the 
back-assignment happens or not, but worth mentioning as an option as well.

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Johannes Berg]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 12:22 -0700, James Bottomley wrote:

> I suspect the eventual contract may look different. 

Yes, I'm sure it would. But getting $employer to accept it would be
similar, I'd assume.

> The problem in Europe is that the concept of ownership of the work is
> usually tied to the moral rights, so you can't give it up (even if
> you give up effective ownership when you sign away the economic
> rights).  In the US negotiation is definitely over ownership and what
> you usually end up with is so called undivided partial ownership,
> which gives either party full rights to enforce and sublicense.   I
> think, although never having had to negotiate this type of agreement
> in europe I'm not really experienced, that you'd need to negotiate to
> the point where each party has a non-exclusive licence with the right
> to sublicense to have some sort of equivalence.
> 
> Is there someone who's done this in Europe?
> 

I'm not aware.

I suspect the agreement text would end up being similar to the FSFE's
FLA (https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/FLA.en.pdf), with key differences
being around the grant of rights (assuming $employer wants broader
rights than the FSFE here.)

In the US case, I'd assume that there would also be a broader license
granted to the employer than the open-source license governing the work
in question?

johannes

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Karen Sandler]

This has all been quite a discussion! I wanted to clarify a few
things:

  * <insert lawyer joke here> [1]

  * Some of the statements made in this discussion rely on legal
assertions that aren't quite right. [2] 

  * As others have pointed out, every part of Conservancy's approach to
enforcement is designed to take risk away from companies out of
compliance. [3]

  * I'm really glad that people are thinking about these issues. [4]

  * Over time, regardless of what individual Linux copyright holders or
Conservancy do, others will bring law suits that will impact the
kernel. [5]

Conservancy spearheads a coordinated[6] and downright timid approach,
codifying our principles so that companies out of compliance can hold us
to them. We merely represent some kernel developers in exercising their
rights. We do this because we think it's right, and we re-evaluate this
together with our coalition at every step. And we do so in a coordinated
and litigation-avoiding style. I only proposed the KS session after
getting encouragement from several prominent kernel developers (and
given that there was precedence for such a legal-related discussion
[7]).

I want proper time for everyone to reflect on what has been said on this
thread and to provide well thought out feedback in whatever forum is
comfortable for them. 

We propose to have this discussion in many different venues and places
over the next six months (whether or not there's an official session at
KS and whether or not we are there to participate if so).  Bradley and
I will each be present at a lot of conferences and events over the next
six months.  At any of these events where people are interested, we'll
host sessions in whatever format is appropriate to meet with Linux
developers and stakeholders to discuss Conservancy's enforcement
activities, to get feedback, and incorporate the ideas we hear into our
work and strategies.  We'll post summaries of the meet-ups (to the
extent we can and still respect requested confidentiality) to our
principles mailing list[8].

Conservancy will be less active on this thread in the future. Obviously
we can't respond to every single criticism on every list, anyway. 
Developers from our coalition are already participating and likely will
continue to do so directly.

Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Conservancy has tons of
other work to do, supporting its member projects (many of which are
permissively licensed btw), Outreachy[9] and a number of other important
initiatives like our employment agreement project, providing good
copyleft educational materials and solving the nonprofit accounting
problem. 

karen

[1] I admit, the legal profession isn't the best... I maintain my legal
credentials, but other than teaching classes for other lawyers I'm not
primarily in that role anymore. (I do continue as a volunteer and give
legal advice to FSF and GNOME as my free time permits - not much this
past weekend after following this whole thread, haha!) As Executive
Director of Conservancy, I rely on other lawyers for Conservancy's
legal work.  Not being able to see the source code to a device that is
literally sewn into my body and screwed into my heart gives me a
slightly different perspective on software freedom and has caused me to
contribute anyway I can, even if I haven't coded in years. I appeal for
the copyleft generally on safety, security and business reasons.  I
also admit that while I have a pretty thick skin, I was somewhat taken
aback by the not-so-veiled threat of disbarment. FWIW, lawyers can hold
public or quasi-public sessions without automatically running afoul of
legal ethics. There is a long list of attorneys active in the field who
have presented at free and open source software events about myriad
topics.

[2] IAAL (though my primary work role is no longer in legal capacity)
but TINLA. I cannot point all of these out for obvious reasons.

[3] When we contact them one of the first things they see are the ways
we commit to making the process comfortable for them. This is true for
anyone who researches who we are and finds the Principles on our site.
The Principles not only talk about law suits as a last resort, but
provide the much more generous termination provisions, giving first-time
violators automatic restoration if the violation is fixed in a timely
fashion. We also respect confidentiality from companies who we believe
have a chance of doing the right thing, because while Linus may enjoy
taking a public potshot at a company out of compliance, I know from some
companies first hand that this is the singular thing that makes them
most nervous about committing to the kernel. There's a real fear that
even if they come into compliance they'll exposed to liability by some
other rightsholder in some jurisdiction somewhere. 

[4] I don't think that a publicly archived list is the best venue for
it. Also, some of the developers in our coalition have strong beliefs
but soft voices.

[5] The majority of law suits in the last couple of years have not been
from anyone in Conservancy's coalition. Obviously, there are the suits
brought by Patrick, but there's also Versata/Ameriprise/Ximpleware in
which the GPL got caught in unrelated cross-fire. Whether or not the
kernel community wants to participate in law suits, courts will surely
wind up having GPL-related issues brought before them, and the results
of those cases will apply to the kernel as well. Info on the Versata
case is here:
https://opensource.com/law/14/7/lawsuit-threatens-break-new-ground-gpl-and-software-licensing-issues

[6] We try to coordinate with anyone active in the space who is willing
to coordinate with us. This incidentally has included rogue enforcers,
industry lawyers and anyone who does work to understand the copyright
status of the kernel (btw, in an early post, I said we coordinated with
dmg when I really meant 'gave feedback on big picture issues and tried
to coordinate' with the work LF is funding.  They have graciously
listened to our comments, but I want to be clear that Conservancy has
not been invited to participate or collaborate in the project in any
way.)

[7] The Q&A I proposed was not intended as a negotiation or an attempt
to provide legal advice to anyone. In fact it was not dissimilar in
character from the session Karen Copenhaver (lawyer to Linux Foundation)
led with Keith Bergelt in 2009. 

[8] https://lists.sfconservancy.org/mailman/listinfo/principles-discuss
which we launched last year to discuss the Principles of
Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement.

[9] I note that Outreachy itself has around 10 paid interns per year for
the kernel, and apparently "ranked #13 for contributions to the Linux
kernel during the last cycle" for organizations.
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/announcements/linux-foundation-releases-development-report-highlighting-contributions-to-linux
Thanks to everyone on this list who mentored and supported these
interns.

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Karen Sandler]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 15:42 -0400, Karen Sandler wrote:
> This has all been quite a discussion! 

Apologies, my reply was for the other thread that inspired this one (I
already reposted my email in the right place in the other thread for
archival purposes).  To comment briefly on this thread, I think the
session James proposed is important and developers should endeavor to
keep their own copyrights where that makes sense. 

If I'm around, I'd be happy to participate and talk about Conservancy's
ContractPatch [1] initiative and if not, I hope attendees get in touch
to collaborate!

karen


[1] https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/aug/04/everything-is-negotiable/

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[James Bottomley]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 12:16 -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 08:54:22 -0700
> James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> > The rest of this is a bit offtopic (it would be on topic in the GPL
> 
> Sorry for hijacking your thread ;-)
> 
> > defence thread).  However, all I will say is that at the moment, if
> > you
> > don't own copyrights on your own contributions to Linux (and if you
> > took no actions to make this happen, you likely don't), you have no
> > legal standing in any GPL enforcement and a court would likely not
> > even
> > bother listening to your opinion.
> 
> Personally, I have a small amount of copyrights in the kernel that 
> were done while I was self employed. But a lot more belong to my 
> current employer. I have mixed feelings about trying to own those. 
> One, I trust my current employer with those copyrights, and two, they 
> paid me to do that code. It was never done "on my own time". I don't 
> feel right trying to claim copyright for code I was paid for, even if 
> it was all my idea to create.

Just on this point, one of the problems with companies is that they
sell stuff, go bust or get bought out.  Perhaps this will never apply
to Red Hat (although never say never) but many other people have to
bear in mind that the entity they trust to hold the kernel copyrights
today may not be the same entity tomorrow.

James

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Steven Rostedt]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:39:57 -0700
James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:


> Just on this point, one of the problems with companies is that they
> sell stuff, go bust or get bought out.  Perhaps this will never apply
> to Red Hat (although never say never) but many other people have to
> bear in mind that the entity they trust to hold the kernel copyrights
> today may not be the same entity tomorrow.
> 

I guess the interesting point is what happens to the copyrights if Red
Hat goes bust? Who defends it?

Now if another company were to buy out Red Hat, I guess the copyrights
would then be owned by them. But the code is still under GPLv2, the
worse that can happen is that they simply let others use it like BSD
licensed code. But as with most of the Linux kernel, my code is
interspersed with others code, so any such usage will require
permission from all copyright owners.

Also, I'm guessing that the new owner should be the one to fight for
it. I still feel that Red Hat will be around longer than I am, which
makes things easier when I die. Or perhaps a dual ownership may work in
such a case.

-- Steve

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Jiri Kosina]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016, Steven Rostedt wrote:

> I guess the interesting point is what happens to the copyrights if Red 
> Hat goes bust? Who defends it?

When a company goes bankrupt, all the intelectual property is being 
handled in the same way as real property in bakrupcy proceedings; IOW the 
intelectual property is usually being transferred to creditors. If this 
doesn't happen for one reason or another, auction takes place.

-- 
Jiri Kosina
SUSE Labs

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[James Bottomley]

On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 19:07 -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:39:57 -0700
> James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
> > Just on this point, one of the problems with companies is that they
> > sell stuff, go bust or get bought out.  Perhaps this will never 
> > apply to Red Hat (although never say never) but many other people 
> > have to bear in mind that the entity they trust to hold the kernel
> > copyrights today may not be the same entity tomorrow.
> > 
> 
> I guess the interesting point is what happens to the copyrights if 
> Red Hat goes bust? Who defends it?

Like all IP, it would get bought out of bankruptcy by someone.  It's
not just defence, it's also offence.  Suppose the new owner wanted to
make a business model of suing others (à la McHardy)?  However, these
are all hypotheticals.  The main reason you might want to own your own
copyrights is to have a say in enforcing them.

James

Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Owning your own copyrights in Linux

[Andy Grover]

On 08/29/2016 04:20 PM, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Mon, 2016-08-29 at 19:07 -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>> I guess the interesting point is what happens to the copyrights if
>> Red Hat goes bust? Who defends it?
>
> Like all IP, it would get bought out of bankruptcy by someone.  It's
> not just defence, it's also offence.  Suppose the new owner wanted to
> make a business model of suing others (à la McHardy)?  However, these
> are all hypotheticals.  The main reason you might want to own your own
> copyrights is to have a say in enforcing them.

FWIW Red Hat lets its developers keep copyright to the code they write. 
It's in the employment agreement.

-- Andy