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authorDrew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>2023-05-17 09:51:53 +0200
committerDrew DeVault <sir@cmpwn.com>2023-05-17 09:51:53 +0200
commitef5bef319231ba17897526be897a05b32961a9cc (patch)
tree013b68e9f9970a56e3f79c94534117b08dc5f351 /content/learn
parentaa216b750fe2a09d948090081ddcf94e7812a4a9 (diff)
downloadwritefreesoftware.org-ef5bef319231ba17897526be897a05b32961a9cc.tar.xz
Managing copyright ownership
Diffstat (limited to 'content/learn')
-rw-r--r--content/learn/four-freedoms.md2
-rw-r--r--content/learn/participate/choose-a-license.md6
-rw-r--r--content/learn/participate/copyright-ownership.md74
3 files changed, 78 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/content/learn/four-freedoms.md b/content/learn/four-freedoms.md
index 9a8d4e0..17e5632 100644
--- a/content/learn/four-freedoms.md
+++ b/content/learn/four-freedoms.md
@@ -69,5 +69,3 @@ source code, and the people you share it with can study, improve, and share it
right back with you. This is the foundation of the **Free Software Movement**: a
global community of software enthusiasts sharing and improving software
together.
-
-{{< button "/learn/licenses" "Next: Free software licenses" "next-button" >}}
diff --git a/content/learn/participate/choose-a-license.md b/content/learn/participate/choose-a-license.md
index bc2e752..15de87e 100644
--- a/content/learn/participate/choose-a-license.md
+++ b/content/learn/participate/choose-a-license.md
@@ -5,8 +5,10 @@ weight: 3
Choosing a license is an important part of publishing your free software
projects. There are many to choose from, and each has different trade-offs and
-implications for your project's future. It can be difficult to change the
-license later, so you should consider it carefully at the start.
+implications for your project's future. It can be difficult to [change the
+license later], so you should consider it carefully at the start.
+
+[change the license later]: /learn/participate/copyright-ownership/#changing-a-projects-license
Here are a few widely used free software licenses we recommend, and why you
might choose them.
diff --git a/content/learn/participate/copyright-ownership.md b/content/learn/participate/copyright-ownership.md
index 53598e9..3a7bbe4 100644
--- a/content/learn/participate/copyright-ownership.md
+++ b/content/learn/participate/copyright-ownership.md
@@ -2,3 +2,77 @@
title: Managing copyright ownership
weight: 90
---
+
+The nature of copyright ownership in free software bears clarifying. In the
+absence of a Contributor License Agreement or similar document (a practice we
+[strongly recommend against][0]), how do free software developers and publishers
+manage the legal rights associated with the software's copyright?
+
+[0]: /learn/participate/contribute/#regarding-contributor-license-agreements
+
+## Who owns a free software project?
+
+When you contribute to a free software project, if you do not assign your
+copyright to someone else, you retain ownership over the intellectual property
+rights associated with your contribution. Your changes are then *licensed* to
+everyone else, including the other copyright holders, under the same terms as
+the license the project was distributed under in the first place.
+
+As such, in most cases, the copyright for any free software project is held in
+aggregate by all of the people who have contributed intellectual property to it,
+who license it to users, and each other, with a [free software license][1].
+
+[1]: /learn/licenses/
+
+## Establishing provenance
+
+It may be desirable for some projects, particularly commercial projects, to
+formally establish the following for each contribution:
+
+1. The contributor owns the copyright for their contribution, or is authorized
+ by the copyright holder to use it
+2. The contributor agrees to license their copyright under the terms of the
+ project license
+
+If it is desirable for your project to formally establish provenance in this
+manner, we recommend the use of the [Developer Certificate of Origin][2]. Most
+projects facilitate this by asking authors to "sign-off" on their contributions.
+The [Git][3] version control system provides a means of indicating that a given
+contribution has been signed-off on with the "[git commit -s][4]" flag.
+
+[2]: https://developercertificate.org/
+[3]: https://git-scm.com/
+[4]: https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit#Documentation/git-commit.txt--s
+
+## Changing a project's license
+
+You may at some point wish to change your project's license.
+
+[permissive license]: /learn/participate/choose-a-license/#permissive-licenses
+[copyleft license]: /learn/participate/choose-a-license/#copyleft-licenses
+
+If the project is licensed with a [permissive license], generally speaking it
+is possible to sublicense the original project with a new license, and applying
+the new license to future changes. You will still have to comply with the
+original license terms, such as attribution, but future changes may be licensed
+under different terms. In this sense, changing the license is similar to
+starting a new project and incorporating the original codebase into it.
+
+However, if the project is licensed with a [copyleft license], this is more
+difficult -- often impossible. This is an intended trait of copyleft licenses:
+it is necessary in order to prevent the project from being incorporated into
+non-free software. You cannot generally sublicense a copyleft project in the
+same way you can license a permissive project.
+
+It is possible to change the license of a copyleft project, but you must either
+<nobr>**(a)** secure the</nobr> permission of all copyright holders, or
+<nobr>**(b)** rewrite their contributions</nobr>. This approach is also
+appropriate if you want to change a permissive license without being subject to
+its original terms (such as attribution), but this is usually not worth the
+effort considering the relatively non-onerous terms of permissive licenses.
+
+It is for this reason that holding the copyright in aggregate among the
+contributors, rather than assigning copyright to a single entity, is recommended
+for copyleft projects: it strengthens the long-term security of the project's
+free software status by making it more difficult to change it to a non-free
+license.