[Fedora-legal-list] Re: unifont in Fedora

[Jon Stanley]

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice :)

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 2:13 PM, Qianqian Fang <fangqq at gmail.com> wrote:
> hi Paul
>
> My understanding to Fedora's CLA is that you are not assigning the full
> copyright
> to Redhat, rather, you ONLY allow them to "to reproduce, prepare derivative
> works of, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute
> your
> Contribution and such derivative works; ..."

This is correct, this is not a copyright assignment, but rather a license grant.
>
> In another word, if you define your software license as GPLv2, Redhat can
> only
> create derivative work from your software, therefore, they can only be
> GPLv2. Redhat can not own the full copyright and revoke your original
> license of your software.

They cannot do this - the terms of the GPLv2 apply to that code. They
*can* create derivative works and distribute the result under GPLv2,
however, this is the same right that anyone who has received a copy of
the software can exercise.

> The only word I am not clear is "sublicense", although it does not sound
> like "re-license" or "dual-license".

Sublicense in this context means that they can pass the GPLv2 on to
other parties (again, nothing that any other party couldn't do anyway)

>> However, please feel free to enter unifont into Fedora if you want.
>> That way you're entering my work without my signing away a copyright
>> (thereby giving Red Hat the power to circumvent the GPL).

Much of the work that is packaged in Fedora is not packaged by the
upstream author. Therefore, even if the CLA somehow gave Red Hat
magical powers to relicense stuff (it doesn't), then the actual
praticality of that