How can a person continue to be a “majority owner” of a project they have not touched in 12 years? And it sounds like most, if not all, of the original code has been changed/rewritten. Legally-speaking that sort of situation seems either not-covered or a grey area. Morally it seems clear he is/was an uninvolved 3rd party in 2009.
It doesn’t seem much different than doing contract work, to me. I contract to a company, I do all the work, but they still own it in the end. That may not be what the people writing it thought was happening, but that doesn’t mean all of a sudden he doesn’t own it (unless it does, IANAL).
Wow, what a read. When legal matters intrude on software development it’s never pretty.
I didn’t know much about this; is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Perens#BusyBox a fair summary?
How can a person continue to be a “majority owner” of a project they have not touched in 12 years? And it sounds like most, if not all, of the original code has been changed/rewritten. Legally-speaking that sort of situation seems either not-covered or a grey area. Morally it seems clear he is/was an uninvolved 3rd party in 2009.
Landley later started toybox. According to an interview, because of the Perens thing.
It doesn’t seem much different than doing contract work, to me. I contract to a company, I do all the work, but they still own it in the end. That may not be what the people writing it thought was happening, but that doesn’t mean all of a sudden he doesn’t own it (unless it does, IANAL).