From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 14254 invoked by alias); 23 Jul 2007 15:51:38 -0000 Received: (qmail 14244 invoked by uid 22791); 23 Jul 2007 15:51:38 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (HELO nf-out-0910.google.com) (64.233.182.190) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 15:51:35 +0000 Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id d21so124018nfb for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:51:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.82.170.2 with SMTP id s2mr2250972bue.1185205891673; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:51:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.82.159.16 with HTTP; Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:51:31 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:29:00 -0000 From: "Bernd Jendrissek" To: "Ralf Corsepius" Subject: Re: Switching GAS to GPLv3 Cc: binutils@sourceware.org In-Reply-To: <1185202505.10535.66.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20070703113243.GF4603@sunsite.mff.cuni.cz> <4694E508.2020302@redhat.com> <1185202505.10535.66.camel@mccallum.corsepiu.local> X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact binutils-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: binutils-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2007-07/txt/msg00356.txt.bz2 Ralf Corsepius wrote: > In my understanding everybody who submits patches to binutils must have > a copyright assignment to the FSF on file (unless patches are considered > trivial). > > I am I wrong in presuming that a patch contributed under a copyright > assignment can be implied to cover GPLv2 and GPLv3? > > In other words, if I's submit a patch against a GPLv3'd version of a > package I'd implicitly assume my patch also to be applicable to a > GPLv2'd version of the package. My assignment (which I have not yet returned - bad me!) includes: "d) FSF agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, non-exclusive, royalty-free and non-cancellable rights to use the Works (i.e., Developer's changes and/or enhancements, not the Program that they enhance), as Developer sees fit; this grant back does not limit FSF's rights and public rights acquired through this agreement." The answer to your question, AFAICT, hinges on whether your patch is a derived work or not (surely it is, otherwise an Evil Empire can do diff -N -u10000 /src/binutils /emptydir >/tmp/proprietary.diff???) and if so, what the licence of the derived-from work is. But if you download a GPLv2 tarball before August and run diff between it and your subsequent modified copy, then I reckon you can do whatever you want with that patch, as long as you obey the GPLv2 (due to the tarball's pre-August licence). You just can't sue anyone for what they do with your patch, because only the FSF has the right to do so. Then again, IANAL.