Re: Small technicality in the Student Participant Agreement

[Darshit Shah]

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 7:00 PM, Dirk Haun <address@hidden> wrote:

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 12:00 PM, Darshit Shah <address@hidden> wrote:

This is merely a small technicality, however in matters of the law, it probably should be edited to reflect such a scenario too.

P.S.: I am simply a hobbyist and amateur. If I have made an error in comprehending the Agreement, please do point out the same to me and I'd be glad to learn.

IANAL, but in my (private, non-law) understanding, the moment you create something (e.g. code you write), you own the copyright. You then decide to hand it over to GNU (for example). To me, this seems to be in accordance with the section you cited.

But I'll happily leave that for someone with better knowledge of the copyright laws to decide.

Btw, if you're concerned about this, you could also contact the FSF. There are some FSF/GNU orgs participating in GSoC and I would assume they're already aware of this clause.

That is also my understanding. That I was the owner of the Copyrights which were then transferred to another entity.

However, I also do understand that such documents must often be highly precise. And the wording of the text leaves room for interpretation. 

I could be wrong, but it'd be nice to know and learn. 

CC'ing the mail to the GNU GSoC Mailing List. 

I was going through the Student Participant Agreement and the following point stands out in a very particular scenario:
Section 1(Google Summer of Code Participation), Sub-section 2(Project Submission Warranties), Point c: "that you own all copyright and other intellectual property rights in and to the Project Submission;"
Now Organizations like the GNU Project require ALL their contributors to sign Copyright Assignment documents which transfers the Copyright of all the code they commit to the Free Software Foundation (FSF). 
Technically speaking, as a contributor to an application under the GNU Project, I (nor any student under the GNU Project) do not have the Copyrights to the code I would be submitting for Google Summer of Code and hence will violate this Agreement.
The Copyright Assignment Papers however very clearly lay out certain terms due to which none of the other points in the Student Participant Agreement are violated. 
This is merely a small technicality, however in matters of the law, it probably should be edited to reflect such a scenario too. 
P.S.: I am simply a hobbyist and amateur. If I have made an error in comprehending the Agreement, please do point out the same to me and I'd be glad to learn.

--
Thanking You,
Darshit Shah
Research Lead, Code Innovation
Kill Code Phobia.

B.E.(Hons.) Mechanical Engineering, '14. BITS-Pilani