Re: Update to GCC copyright assignment policy

[Jeff Law <jeffreyalaw@gmail.com>]

On 6/1/2021 5:22 PM, Eric Gallager via Gcc wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 10:02 AM David Edelsohn via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote:
>> GCC was created as part of the GNU Project but has grown to operate as
>> an autonomous project.
>>
>> The GCC Steering Committee has decided to relax the requirement to
>> assign copyright for all changes to the Free Software Foundation.  GCC
>> will continue to be developed, distributed, and licensed under the GNU
>> General Public License v3.0. GCC will now accept contributions with or
>> without an FSF copyright assignment. This change is consistent with
>> the practices of many other major Free Software projects, such as the
>> Linux kernel.
>>
>> Contributors who have an FSF Copyright Assignment don't need to
>> change anything.  Contributors who wish to utilize the Developer Certificate
>> of Origin[1] should add a Signed-off-by message to their commit messages.
>> Developers with commit access may add their name to the DCO list in the
>> MAINTAINERS file to certify the DCO for all future commits in lieu of individual
>> Signed-off-by messages for each commit.
>>
>> The GCC Steering Committee continues to affirm the principles of Free
>> Software, and that will never change.
>>
>> - The GCC Steering Committee
>>
>> [1] https://developercertificate.org/
> One thing I'm wondering about this change is if it allows certain old
> changes that previously couldn't be upstreamed to now be upstreamed?
> For example, when I have asked about trying to forward-port certain
> changes from Apple's old gcc-4.2 branch, I was told that one reason
> this couldn't happen was because Apple hadn't assigned copyright for
> those changes. Of course, there are still the technical difficulties
> of the fact that 4.2 has bitrotted considerably in the years since its
> last release, but regardless of those, are the legal difficulties at
> least now out of the way?
Read the DCO.   If you can satisfy the terms of the DCO, then yes it 
would help.  But DCO still has requirements that may not be easily met 
unless you are the author or know the author and can communicate with them.

jeff