From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 20232 invoked by alias); 26 Apr 2010 16:54:04 -0000 Received: (qmail 20213 invoked by uid 22791); 26 Apr 2010 16:53:59 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mail-out4.apple.com (HELO mail-out4.apple.com) (17.254.13.23) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:53:53 +0000 Received: from relay11.apple.com (relay11.apple.com [17.128.113.48]) by mail-out4.apple.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0E02E96EA722; Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:53:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from clattner2.apple.com (clattner2.apple.com [17.224.14.166]) (using TLS with cipher AES128-SHA (AES128-SHA/128 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by relay11.apple.com (Apple SCV relay) with SMTP id 05.5E.31165.F15C5DB4; Mon, 26 Apr 2010 09:53:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Why not contribute? (to GCC) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1078) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii From: Chris Lattner In-Reply-To: Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:59:00 -0000 Cc: kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu, gcc@gcc.gnu.org, lopezibanez@gmail.com Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: References: <9FD5A5B2-7195-409C-BA23-5DCF2283FC7D@apple.com> <11004251633.AA01720@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu> <6E6E3A32-8D5B-48E5-A891-38F920CFE2B5@apple.com> To: ams@gnu.org X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact gcc-help@gcc.gnu.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: Sender: gcc-owner@gcc.gnu.org X-SW-Source: 2010-04/txt/msg00834.txt.bz2 On Apr 26, 2010, at 8:11 AM, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote: > It's unclear whether the LLVM-style implicit copyright assignment > is really enforceable, and this certainly isn't a forum to debate > it. In any case, it doesn't really matter, because the only reason > copyright needs to be assigned (AFAIK) is to change the license. >=20 > This is not the only reason (and in the GNU projects case, not a > reason at all), the main reason is to be able to enforce the copyright > of the work without having to call in everyone into court. If only > parts of GCC where copyrighted by the FSF, then the FSF could only sue > only for those parts. Someone else pointed this out elsewhere in the thread, so perhaps it is wor= th responding. Being able to enforce copyright is specifically useful if y= our code is under a GPL-style license. For code under a bsd-style "do what= ever you want, but don't sue us" style license, this is much less important= . That is why I claimed that the license change aspect is most important: = for me personally, "enforcing copyright" is not a particular exciting prosp= ect. w.r.t. "hoarding", I'll point out that (in the context of GCC) being able t= o enforce copyright is pretty useless IMO. While you can force someone to = release their code, the GPL doesn't force them to assign the copyright to t= he FSF. In practice this means that you can force someone to release their= GCC changes, but you can't merge them back to mainline GCC. In a warped w= ay you could argue that the FSF using the GPL encourages their software to = fork :-) On Apr 25, 2010, at 10:23 PM, Richard Kenner wrote: >> This would be on topic if the thread were "Why not contribute? (to LLVM)= ", >> but it isn't. If you're really concerned about LLVM developers, that's = one >> thing, but this is certainly not the place to discuss it. >=20 > OK, then I'll rephrase it: >=20 > If the GCC project were to change their policy so that there is no longer > any document signed between the submitter of the code and the FSF, To be perfectly clear, I'm not suggesting that the FSF or GCC project chang= e their policies. I'm just disputing some claims about LLVM system, and po= inting out that LLVM and GCC's policies differ because there are substantia= lly different goals involved. The LLVM project is much more focused on the= technology and the community, the GCC project is more focused on ensuring = software freedom (as defined by the FSF). There isn't anything wrong with = having different goals. -Chris