[Gnu-arch-users] License issues with my patches (was RE: cygwin: once more)

[Parker, Ron]

Just a heads up on the licensing of the original patches.  Unbeknownst to
me, while my older contributions to cygwin did not require a disclaimer from
my employer.  These changes do.  I've been quiet on this for a couple of
weeks while my employer was hashing it over and because I have been out of
town a lot.

Essentially, Butler didn't exactly like the original form of the Red Hat
disclaimer, so they modified it a little more to their liking, not wanting
to sign off on what they considered future changes of unknown scope that
somehow might be of business interest to them.  (I think it was an errant
reading of the disclaimer to interpret it the way they did, but I'm not our
legal department.)  Also being in the metal building construction industry,
I fail to see what possible overlap there could be with cygwin, but I'm
certain legal doesn't know what cygwin is.

Suffice it to say this wasn't to the liking of the people at Red Hat.  CGF
will not allow inclusion of my patches without my company agreeing to
capping my changes at a date at least a couple months out.  Understandably,
he doesn't want to approach RH legal with the situation unless my employer
is willing to be a little more flexible.  I need to work toward this end,
but I have to work around various individuals vacation schedules and a
pending contract for sale of my home.

I can see a couple possible solutions if I cannot get a better disclaimer
from my employer.  The first is that someone else authors a completely
original solution independent of my patches.  If that occurred I believe I
could still provide guidance on what needs to be done or at least testing of
the code.  The second, is to create a complete solution, possibly
collaborating with others, without publicly releasing the patches.  Once it
is working I could get a sign off of all the code from my employer and the
completed working solution in one shot, possibly with a "warrantee" period
(something Butler is accustomed to in their IT contracts) during which I
could still make bug fixes.  

I don't think my patches are completely dead in the water yet, since our CIO
has indicated a desire to work with me on this.  Basically I believe he
wants to keep me happy.

I would also like to apologize to everyone for possibly wasting their time
and polluting the public knowledge pool with patches that at this time have
an unclear ownership.  I really did not expect an IP problem as I have
contributed to various open projects over the years, but this is the first
time someone has needed a disclaimer from my employer in spite of my
employment contract permitting this sort of thing.  

Rest assured, I would have never posted the patches in the first place if I
expected this.

This my friends, is why I don't like the current state of IP laws.  No one
else should be able to own my brain without my explicit permission.  I'll
avoid getting too political, but it does seem like semi-voluntary mental
slavery or indentured servitude.  Please don't leap too quickly to scream
"foul" at the slavery comparison.  Unfortunately in this country most
slavery was involuntary, but there is history for voluntary servitude or
slavery going back millennia.  Actually in some cultures the wearing of an
earring was the symbol of a free-will slave.  (Not unlike certain modern
"slaves-to-fashion". j/k Sorry I need some humor to deal with all of this.)