Winpdb - A Platform Independent Python Debugger GPL and the Copyright Problem
First I chose GPL for Winpdb, then only 2 years later I actually discovered Free Software, what it stands for and the fascinating universe behind these two words, but now a year later I have stumbled on a problem.
GPL is a tool that uses copyright to enforce software freedom, but… in order to be able to enforce that there must be a copyright holder that can take action. The FSF is aware of this and is carefully requiring contributors and their employers (!) to sign legal papers of copyright transfer: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-assign.html
The problem is that most GPL projects can not afford to force potential contributors to get their employers to sign legal papers as it will reduce the number of contributions to 0 and therefore the copyright to their projects is either dispersed among the different contributors or even worse, is questionably held by a single person or entity (with emphasis on questionably).
What does that practically imply on GPL?
On my search for answers I stumbled upon an interesting article from the year 2000 in Advogato (A recommended site). It became even more interesting when I spied a comment by one Bram Cohen who at the time was little known in the Universe as he did not yet leave his job to write BitTorrent: http://www.advogato.org/article/183.html
I would appreciate your educated opinion or a reference to articles on this subject.
