From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 9714 invoked by alias); 25 Apr 2010 15:44:29 -0000 Received: (qmail 9704 invoked by uid 22791); 25 Apr 2010 15:44:28 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.1 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,FREEMAIL_FROM,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE,SARE_MSGID_LONG45 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mail-qy0-f199.google.com (HELO mail-qy0-f199.google.com) (209.85.221.199) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:44:24 +0000 Received: by qyk37 with SMTP id 37so7924135qyk.8 for ; Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:44:22 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.224.92.1 with SMTP id p1mr824600qam.24.1272210262122; Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:44:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.224.11.84 with HTTP; Sun, 25 Apr 2010 08:44:22 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20100425093447.3aafc6c1@bike.lwn.net> References: <20100424121223.B917D9C09@caffeine.csclub.uwaterloo.ca> <20100425093447.3aafc6c1@bike.lwn.net> Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:54:00 -0000 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Why not contribute? (to GCC) From: Steven Bosscher To: Jonathan Corbet Cc: ams@gnu.org, Ross Ridge , gcc@gcc.gnu.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 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/msg00707.txt.bz2 On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 5:34 PM, Jonathan Corbet wrote: > On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 08:51:17 -0400 > "Alfred M. Szmidt" wrote: > >> Not much can be done to either of those, the copyright assignments are >> necessary to keep GCC legally safe. > > Given that there are plenty of high-profile projects out there which > seem to be entirely safe in the absence of copyright assignment > policies, why, exactly, does GCC need one to be "legally safe"? > > Note that "copyright assignment" and "being sure that the developer > has the right to contribute the code" are two very different things. IANAL but the copyright assignment is probably necessary for the FSF to have the rights to change the license at will (within the limitations allowed by the copyright assignment). If there are many copyright holders, like for say the linux kernel, a change of license requires the approval of at least all major copyright holders, IIUC. Ciao! Steven