Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Tue, 5 Sep 2000 11:10:28 -0700 (PDT) | From | dean gaudet <> | Subject | Re: [ANNOUNCE] Withdrawl of Open Source NDS Project/NTFS/M2FS forLinux |
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On Sun, 3 Sep 2000, Andre Hedrick wrote:
> But there is no Copyright license in patch code.
On Mon, 4 Sep 2000, Mike A. Harris wrote:
> I was under the understanding a "patch" to something GPL, means > the "patch" is also GPL.
when IBM started working with the apache group their lawyers did a bunch of studying of various licenses and worked out a system by which their folks could contribute code. one of the things their folks do is explicitly release every patch under the apache license -- just to be sure. they tend to explicitly include the release boilerplate along with the patch mail message... but they did mention that the method that i've been using for years is probably fine as well, although somewhat weaker.
look in my message headers and you'll see i point folks at <http://arctic.org/~dean/legal>, and one of the clauses in there explicitly puts any patch/docs/etc. i send in a message under the same license as the software it's intended to support.
explicit notices are much better for legal purposes. although just by posting you never give up your copyright -- you have to do that explicitly (i explicitly listed public domain because it's a blanket "i give up my rights" when you do that). linus or anyone taking your patches and putting them into the kernel without your explicit release is weaker legally than if you put a notice in your messages.
you can expect all these issues to come up the first time the GPL is challenged in court.
IANAL.
-dean
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