Evolution Bounty Stirs GPL Concerns

Moochman writes "The recent Desktop Integration Bounty (funded by Novell) will surely please people who want Evolution to be part of GNOME. But the Ximian Evolution copyright assignment has stirred up concerns in the community about whether contributors will be able to maintain their Free Software mores. Essentially, contributors to Evolution must give Novell copyright over any code they submit; then Novell is allowed to include this code in a proprietary product. Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?" Since all contributions are only at the request of the contributing coder, and considering that the copyright assignment form says that "Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works," and specifies that Novell/Ximian release the code under a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (such as the GPL), it seems to protect the contributors rather well.

Re:A no issue.

[foidulus]

Yeah, but it would be better if developers were getting laid for their work. Then I don't think you would hear anyone complaining about the licensing scheme :P

Re:A no issue.

[Florian Weimer]

Yeah, but it would be better if developers were getting laid for their work.

If everything else fails, it shouldn't be a problem for a developer to get laid
off for his work.

Re:A no issue.

[darksaber]

So if they're getting laid for their work, they're complaining about license rights on the video produced?

Re:KDE Integration

[harvalen]

Maybe we need to start KDE project as answer to Evolution?

Let's call it Kreationism ;)

Re:Slashdot food?

[elFarto the 2nd]

Where's the BS filter gone?

Didn't you hear? It was uninstalled so Taco could play Doom3.

Regards
elFarto