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

[Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>]

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