Re: Update to GCC copyright assignment policy

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 11:05:24AM -0400, Richard Kenner wrote:
> > > What about the parts of GCC with FSF copyrights that are not covered by
> > > the GPL, but the GPL with exceptions?  How is it possible to move code
> > > between the parts if a contributor previously used DCO and thus gave
> > > only permission to license under the open source license "indicated in
> > > the file"?
> > 
> > Depends on which DCO you uses. Various project use the following DCO,
> > which makes clear you assign permissions under all applicable licenses
> > (this helps if the project uses more than one, possibly incompatible,
> > license and/or is dual licensed):
> 
> See above.  The issue is if the project wants to change the status of
> a file from GPL to GPL plus exception.  It can't do that if there
> was a change to the file made by somebody who did't assign the copyright.
> What's said in the DCO you cite doesn't help.

Right. The point wasn't so much as "here is the perfect DCO", but more
that the DCO as used for the linux kernel project might not be the
best for the GCC project given that GCC is not really a monolitic
project, but a collection of compiler/runtime modules each with their
own licence/exeception statements. So we might need tweaks for the
specific way we reuse code between modules. Or when using GPLed code
in the GFDLed manual.

Another example of a developer certificate of origin, which again
isn't a perfect fit for GCC, but which shows another way to handle
multiple licenses is the Samba one:
https://www.samba.org/samba/devel/copyright-policy.html

Cheers,

Mark