HP gdb/wdb sources available

HP gdb/wdb sources available

[Steve Ellcey]

The HP gdb sources have been put on sourceware.org in
 ~ftp/pub/gdb/contrib/hp/wdb-20050829.tar.gz.  These are the same
sources HP makes available at http://www.hp.com/go/gdb (except it does
not include the Judy subdirectory).  Judy (a dynamic array package) is
already released under the LGPL at sourceforge.

The purpose of this delivery is to assign the copyright of any HP
generated changes in these files to FSF so that non-HP folks can take
any of the changes that HP made and incorporate them into the FSF gdb
sources without worrying about HP copyright ownership.  I have a
copyright assignment on file with FSF.

Steve Ellcey
sje@cup.hp.com

Re: HP gdb/wdb sources available

[Daniel Jacobowitz]

On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 05:02:46PM -0700, James E Wilson wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 13:30, Steve Ellcey wrote:
> > The purpose of this delivery is to assign the copyright of any HP
> > generated changes in these files to FSF so that non-HP folks can take
> > any of the changes that HP made and incorporate them into the FSF gdb
> > sources without worrying about HP copyright ownership.  I have a
> > copyright assignment on file with FSF.
> 
> This doesn't seem to make much sense.
> 
> Simply placing the files on an FSF machine does not constitute a
> copyright assignment.  A copyright assignment requires a piece of paper
> with appropriate language approved by the FSF and signed by a VP or
> higher at HP that covers the code in question.  (And by the way, this
> isn't an FSF machine, so by placing something here, you haven't actually
> given it to the FSF.)
> 
> Also, your copyright assignment only covers code that you wrote
> yourself.  If you give code to the FSF, that does not cause the code to
> be covered by your copyright assignment.  We need a copyright assignment
> from the original author of the code.  If HP has a corporate assignment,
> then that would be sufficient.  Otherwise, we need personal assignments
> from everyone that helped write the code, along with corporate
> disclaimers for each person.  If you haven't been keeping records of who
> wrote which piece of code (such as FSF style ChangeLog entries), then
> only a corporate assignment will do.

I am inclined to agree with Jim's concerns about copyright assignments.

I took a look at copyright.list, and could not figure out whether this
was covered by HP's prior assignments; they have a number of
assignments covering GDB but I don't think any of them were "and future
changes".

Jim, as for the actual act of putting it on sourceware.org, my
understanding is that it acts as a public release in tandem with the
announcement.  We've done this for large GDB drops from other companies
(ACT, Apple) in the past and gotten consensus that it was the right way
to go.

-- 
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery, LLC

Re: HP gdb/wdb sources available

[Paul Hilfinger]

 > > Simply placing the files on an FSF machine does not constitute a
 > > copyright assignment.  A copyright assignment requires a piece of paper
 > > with appropriate language approved by the FSF and signed by a VP or
 > > higher at HP that covers the code in question.  (And by the way, this
 > > isn't an FSF machine, so by placing something here, you haven't actually
 > > given it to the FSF.)
 > > 
 > > Also, your copyright assignment only covers code that you wrote
 > > yourself.  If you give code to the FSF, that does not cause the code to
 > > be covered by your copyright assignment.  We need a copyright assignment
 > > from the original author of the code.  If HP has a corporate assignment,
 > > then that would be sufficient.  Otherwise, we need personal assignments
 > > from everyone that helped write the code, along with corporate
 > > disclaimers for each person.  If you haven't been keeping records of who
 > > wrote which piece of code (such as FSF style ChangeLog entries), then
 > > only a corporate assignment will do.
 > 
 > I am inclined to agree with Jim's concerns about copyright assignments.
 > 
 > I took a look at copyright.list, and could not figure out whether this
 > was covered by HP's prior assignments; they have a number of
 > assignments covering GDB but I don't think any of them were "and future
 > changes".

AdaCore and HP had a little conference-call discussion on this matter
(which included some of HP's legal staff) some weeks ago, leading to
this particular course of action.  HP should really comment on this to
confirm my impression, of course, since I cannot speak for them.

Basically, my recollection is that HP's understanding of their
assignment was that certain specified individuals within HP are
authorized to select and contribute parts of HP's source code for
Binutils, GCC, Glibc, and GDB and that these contributions are defined
to be what is assigned by HP to the FSF.  Ted Teah at the FSF seemed
to agree with this assessment when I mailed him about it.  So, yes,
while merely placing files on the FSF site (or checking them in, for
that matter) does not normally in itself constitute copyright
assignment, it does by this agreement.

Paul Hilfinger