Re: SGI releases IA64 C C++ and F90 compiler under GPL (fwd)

[Richard Stallman <rms at gnu dot org>]

Early in the development of the GNU operating system, years before the
development of a kernel called Linux, I asked a copyright lawyer what
we should do to be in a good position to enforce the GPL against
violators in court if necessary.

His advice was that we should keep the copyright status of each
program as simple as possible, preferably having just one copyright
holder for each package.  He designed the copyright assignments and
disclaimers that we use, including in the assignments various
commitments to the contributor so that the code cannot be turned into
proprietary software.

We don't insist that every contributor must assign copyright.
Contributors who would prefer to put their code in the public domain
can always do that instead, by signing a disclaimer instead of an
assignment.  We can also make an exception occasionally; but we are
supposed to keep the number of exceptions to a minimum, so we will do
it only when it is very important.

A year or so ago I asked Professor Moglen, our main legal advisor
today, if his advice was the same.  It was.

The FSF follows this legal advice for packages where the FSF is the
copyright holder.  Other developers make their own decisions, but I
expect they will get similar advice from their lawyers--if they ask.