Yes, this is what happens when we let lawyers make the rules. I often thought we should have a "Washington Tea Party", and instead of cases of tea, throw politicians into the Potomac.

!!!

There should be anti-pollution laws to stop that kind of thing!

--
use JAPH;
print JAPH::asString();

OK maybe in the US, there I have the impression that lawyers are the modern correspondent of the priest-class in ancient Egypt, ruling the naive citizens with their interpretation of "God's will". ;-)

But I doubt that this copyright law is the situation in most European countries, especially in Germany...

Yes, that's exactly what it means. Which is why GNU/FSF policy includes things like "Before incorporating significant changes, make sure that the person who wrote the changes has signed copyright papers and that the Free Software Foundation has received and signed them. We may also need an employer's disclaimer from the person's employer." and "You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary."

But, yes, Europe is different. One of the reasons I'm glad I moved here...

Strange!

But how can an open source project be sure that an important contributor does have the right to transfer his copyrights to the project???

Sounds like lots of income for lawyers...

Cheers Rolf

UPDATE: To be more precise: Imagine you buy a car and you get a written guaranty that the deal was legal. But if the car was stolen, even years ago, you will certainly loose this car!

Now of course you have the option to sue the seller for compensation for the car...

But with software the copyrights can cost over the years a multitude of what the contributor can be able to pay!

Chicken and egg here. It is really hard to renegotiate an existing employment contract. So you need to find a new job to negotiate one. But you want to have a different employment contract to make it easier to find said job. See the catch?

That said, most employers will not actually bother to negotiate with you. Many people just strike a bunch of crap out, sign, turn that in and hear nothing then think that they have negotiated. Unfortunately nothing makes the employer sign to that revision. So now you don't actually have an employment contract. Guess what? That means you fall under the default rules, which means in New York that a professional employee who is a programmer who writes programs in personal time on a personal machine is creating works for hire that belong to the employer. Congratulations on your great negotiating strategy. It earned you..nothing.

While negotiating can work, it is a lot more risky and a lot more work than having the good luck to live somewhere with saner rules.

At least in the UK (and yes, I have checked this with a lawyer) when I altered the contract before accepting a job, their paying me is deemed to be acceptance of my changes. I am surprised that the same doesn't apply in other common-law jurisdictions.