From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17363 invoked by alias); 23 May 2003 18:17:52 -0000 Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org Received: (qmail 28913 invoked from network); 23 May 2003 18:08:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ms-smtp-01.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.148) by sources.redhat.com with SMTP; 23 May 2003 18:08:03 -0000 Received: from doctormoo (syr-24-24-16-58.twcny.rr.com [24.24.16.58]) by ms-smtp-01.nyroc.rr.com (8.12.5/8.12.2) with ESMTP id h4NI80Gm016071; Fri, 23 May 2003 14:08:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from neroden by doctormoo with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 19JGxK-0000cl-00; Fri, 23 May 2003 14:07:50 -0400 Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 18:22:00 -0000 To: gcc@gcc.gnu.org, pfeifer@dbai.tuwien.ac.at Cc: rms@gnu.org Subject: Re: Manual contributions and copyright assignments Message-ID: <20030523180750.GA2398@doctormoo> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i From: Nathanael Nerode X-SW-Source: 2003-05/txt/msg02116.txt.bz2 Gerald wrote: >RMS asked us to implement the following policy: > > [P]lease don't install changes in the manual on the strength > of copyright assignments signed before Jan 2002. If a person >signed > before that, assign@gnu.org can look at the papers and tell you >if > they explicitly cover documentation. If not, we should get new >papers > from that contributor. > >As far as I understand, obvious fixes and minor changes (where we >didn't >need a copyright assignment before) are not affected. Let me state for the record that I consider all my changes to the manual to date to be uncopyrightable. So at least you don't have to worry about me for the past. >RMS, how do you suggest to proceed practically? This seems to >affect more >than 100 developers with CVS write access, any of which can commit >patches >of her/his own or others, and about 700 contributors overall >(according to >/gd/gnuorg/copyright.list). For the *future* there's no real problem; there's just a major annoyance. Someone has to check the paperwork status of everyone in MAINTAINERS w.r.t. documentation, and ask each of the no-documentation pre-2002 people if they wish to sign a new documenation assignment. For those who don't, they're marked as 'no-documentation' in MAINTAINERS and notified. :-/ For those who do, their documentation changes can't be committed until their paperwork is complete. For the *past*, however, there's a serious problem; people may have checked in documentation changes under the assumption that they were paperwork-complete, and those people may no longer be maintainers, may not want to sign new paperwork, or whatever. But their changes may not be trivial, or indeed practically removable at all (if other people have built on them). If we are not to install their changes (which are already in CVS) what are we supposed to do? --Nathanael