Re: Organisation for enforcement of GPL3 licensing

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 does not want their code misused or withdrawn from the community;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