Re: Organisation for enforcement of GPL3 licensing

I wish to find or start a project which is capable and willing of enforcing the GPL3 licensing terms of of individual software developers and documenters (hereafter "contributors") who otherwise have no incorporated or organized identity.

The contributors could be
making contributions small in scope;
large in number;
legally unable or merely unwilling to assign copyright to a central organisation;
unpredictable and unreliable in time and degree of participation and contactability.
Some may come, contribute, and vanish.

I presume that the contributors would be willing to assign rights or privileges to a central organisation, including rights to:
enforce licensing terms,
receive the proceeds of successful litigation and be the sole beneficiary thereof.

Is Software in the Public Interest suitable for that?
Is there another organisation suitable for that?

jyqvklioo(at)googlemail(dot)com writes ("Organisation for enforcement of GPL3 licensing"):
> I wish to find or start a project which is capable and willing of
> enforcing the GPL3 licensing terms of of individual software
> developers and documenters (hereafter "contributors") who otherwise
> have no incorporated or organized identity.

Are you aware of the Software Freedom Law Centre ? They do some of
this.

However, if you would like to start your own project then in principle
I think SPI would be willing to provide its facilities (primarily, the
ability to take donations tax free in the US and spend them on your
charitable purposes).

However, you would have to demonstrate to the SPI board:
* That your project was already up and running, rather than just a
twinkle in your eye;
* That SPI's general funds would not be placed at risk.

The latter is a serious concern which the SPI board ought to take
separate advice over. In some jurisdictions (including England and
Wales, at the very least, an example with which I'm familiar) lawsuits
which fail typically result in the plaintiff having the pay the
defendant's legal bills - and any one who helped fund the action can
also be liable.

Ian.

Thank you for having taken the time to reply.

> Are you aware of the Software Freedom Law Centre ?
> They do some of this.

Can authors pre-authorize them to enforce licensing terms, or can they do it
without prior authorisation of the authors?
Can they themselves receive awarded compensation rather than the authors?
If they will accept and can benefit from assignment of these rights, they may be
suitable.

It is de-motivating to libre software authors and potential authors that usage
terms are abused. SFLC has helped in that regard. I'm looking for a ways to
make GPL licensing more enforceable, even when contributors have become
unreachable or it is impractical to trace who wrote or improved what work.

>and any one who helped fund the action can also be liable.

What about not funding the development or providing hosting, but participating
and funding the enforcement of licensing terms?

Channeling of donations to authors is not what I'm seeking.

The model of the 'contributor' I have is someone who
wants to give code or documentation to the community;
does not want their code misused or withdrawn from the community;
is willing to allocate any financial rewards to the governing organization;
shelter from legal harassment would be motivating but not essential.

There is no published project.
My model the projects is it should accommodate:
high turnover;
small contributions;
involvement of a large number of contributors.
Nonetheless there would be a set of results which were marked as well reusable.

The start of the project would be publishing/releasing a C++ library licensed
GPL3 with no exception clauses.

On Wed, 16 Sep 2009, jyqvklioo(at)googlemail(dot)com wrote:

> I wish to find or start a project which is capable and willing of
> enforcing the GPL3 licensing terms of of individual software developers
> and documenters (hereafter "contributors") who otherwise have no
> incorporated or organized identity.

Do you know about http://gpl-violations.org/ ?

I believe they'd had several successful judgements in court against GPL
violators, mainly in Germany.

Rob

--
I tried to change the world but they had a no-return policy
http://www.practicalsysadmin.com

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 05:40:25PM +0200, jyqvklioo(at)googlemail(dot)com wrote:
> Thank you for having taken the time to reply.
>
> > Are you aware of the Software Freedom Law Centre ?
> > They do some of this.
>
> Can authors pre-authorize them to enforce licensing terms, or can they do it
> without prior authorisation of the authors?
> Can they themselves receive awarded compensation rather than the authors?
> If they will accept and can benefit from assignment of these rights, they may be
> suitable.
>
> It is de-motivating to libre software authors and potential authors that usage
> terms are abused. SFLC has helped in that regard. I'm looking for a ways to
> make GPL licensing more enforceable, even when contributors have become
> unreachable or it is impractical to trace who wrote or improved what work.

You have to discuss this with a lawyer, not here on spi-general.

> >and any one who helped fund the action can also be liable.
>
> What about not funding the development or providing hosting, but participating
> and funding the enforcement of licensing terms?
>...

SPI itself does not fund anything.

It basically receives donations earmarked for member projects, and uses
them as the member project wishes.

A main advantage of SPI is that it can accept tax-excempt donations in
the USA, but I'm not sure whether that's interesting for you in Germany.

> The model of the 'contributor' I have is someone who
> wants to give code or documentation to the community;
> does not want their code misused or withdrawn from the community;
> is willing to allocate any financial rewards to the governing organization;
>...

Sounds like FSFs copyright assignment.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

> It is de-motivating to libre software authors and potential authors
> that usage terms are abused. SFLC has helped in that regard. I'm
> looking for a ways to make GPL licensing more enforceable, even when
> contributors have become unreachable or it is impractical to trace
> who wrote or improved what work.

I'm not sure which legal jurisdiction you were thinking to work in,
but if you either (a) don't understand what legal term "locus standi",
or "standing" means, or (b) haven't talked to lawyer about whether
what you hope is even allowed in the countries, I suggest you do that
*before* spending a lot more time trying to set up such a project.

- Ted

Hi,

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 05:40:25PM +0200, jyqvklioo(at)googlemail(dot)com wrote:
> Can authors pre-authorize them to enforce licensing terms, or can they do it
> without prior authorisation of the authors?
> Can they themselves receive awarded compensation rather than the authors?
> If they will accept and can benefit from assignment of these rights, they may
> be suitable.
>
> It is de-motivating to libre software authors and potential authors that
> usage terms are abused. SFLC has helped in that regard. I'm looking for a
> ways to make GPL licensing more enforceable, even when contributors have
> become unreachable or it is impractical to trace who wrote or improved what
> work.

Speaking with my SPI board member hat on: SPI can indeed accept copyright
assignment and does respect the licensing preferences of authors, within the
realm of free software licenses, and definitely including GPLv3 as acceptable.
Its official policy recommends that individual authors retain copyright, but it
will accept it if desired. The SFLC does actually provide legal services to SPI
(we have another lawyer too); they have enforced the GPL before and can do so
again. Normally SPI holds funds that logically or explicitly belong to a
project in trust for the benefit of that project, but it could add them to SPI
general funds if the project explicitly wishes.

Please feel free to provide more details on your proposal to this mailing list
if you're OK with it being public or to board(at)spi-inc(dot)org if you prefer
confidentiality for the time being. I should let you know that new associated
project proposals are generally discussed on a private mailing list open to all
SPI contributing members before the board votes on them, but where appropriate
some details can remain confidential to the board.

- Jimmy Kaplowitz, member of the SPI board of directors
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

On Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 12:39:28AM +0200, jyqvklioo(at)googlemail(dot)com wrote:
> bits of background.
>
> In some countries, such as Germany, it is not possible to reassign copyright.

True.

> Other rights can be assigned; and I believe that it should be possible to assign
> rights to an organisation to enforce licensing and collect on court awarded
> compensation.
>...

The right person for discussing such issues is a lawyer.

cu
Adrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
"Only a promise," Lao Er said.
Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

bits of background.

In some countries, such as Germany, it is not possible to reassign copyright.
Other rights can be assigned; and I believe that it should be possible to assign
rights to an organisation to enforce licensing and collect on court awarded
compensation.

I did read:
"A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects"
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/foss-primer.html
which may also interest some of those who have been fascinated by this thread.

All,

Given the existence of the SFLC, the international FSF, and
gpl-violations.org, I really don't see the need for another project
for this. I think that the proposer would be better off joining one
of those organizations.

--Josh Berkus

Attached is a document for the project.
It does not repeat some things that were already stated on the mailing list.
The name is randomly generated and something else could be chosen as far as I am
concerned.

Thank you for writing a list of other parties which might be suitable, as I had
solicited in my first post.

The FSF I had already looked into. It looks like they only accept projects as
part of GNU. This project does not fit in, but some other GNU projects also
seem to me not to be a typical part of a unix. Being part of GNU is unacceptable
and undesirable for a few reasons:

- (simplified) FSF insists on a disclaimer from the employer or school of the
contributor.
"we also need a signed disclaimer from your employer or school. This disclaimer
should be signed by a vice president or general manager of the company."
This, to me and I think many others, is an unacceptable impediment to
contribution. Think Lucid/Xemacs fork.

- FSF insists on either assignment of copyright or disclaimer of interest. 1 is
sometimes impossible. Both are undesirable.

- I would rather not be confined to their system and coding Standards. You can
read my recent plea for an adjustment of 1 standard on the Emacs-devel mailing
list recently. I expect that if one tries to improve other GNU standards they
would usually or always not be altered and responses will include some version
of, "We won't change it because that is how we do it and we do it that way
because that is how we do it." What I know of Debian Policy however is less
intrusive and fine.

SFLC has the Software Freedom Conservancy, which looked like a good match in
principle though they sound a bit picky about projects they participate with, so
I wrote them on September 16th. I have not yet received a reply.

gpl-violations.org has not done this sort of thing, but it looks consistent with
their goals, so maybe they will be interested in this new variation. Thank you
for this idea I had not come upon. I was acquainted with them but falsely
presumed that they & SFLC were 1.