On Mar 9, 2006, at 6:34 PM, Archie Cobbs wrote: > David Daney wrote: >>>> So, given these things and my love for this project, I would >>>> really like the FSF to allow the developers to provide Classpath >>>> under an Apache compatible license in addition to the current >>>> licensing scheme, at least >>> >>> I would support that idea. However, I don't think we require the >>> FSF's >>> permission. We are the authors of Classpath and therefore retain >>> copyright privledges. >> IANAL, but I could swear that I signed over copyright to the FSF >> long ago. > > IANAL either .. but I think you "assigned copyright" to them, > meaning you > gave them the right to copyright. This has no effect on your own > right to > the copyright of your own work. Ie, you did "cp self fsf", not "mv > self fsf". > But since IANAL and TINLA [1], I should probably just shut up for > now :-) > I think technically the FSF assigns back to you permission to use any contributions you make (but not the work as a whole) however you want (you can read what you signed ;-) on fencepost, in /gd/gnuorg/ Copyright). So you can use code that you write in proprietary/other software, if you want. The FSF still owns the copyright on Classpath as a whole, however, and so the decision on what license they release Classpath under is at the FSF's discretion, as long as they use a free license (this is also specified in the agreement; the FSF can't turn your work proprietary, even if you assigned them copyright over your contributions). So sure, the FSF could release Classpath under the disjunction of the GPL and the ASL, if they saw it as fit to. At least that's how I understand it. Standard disclaimers apply...
