[libiberty copyright assignment audit] cp-demangle.c status

[neroden at twcny dot rr dot com (Nathanael Nerode)]

This is a copyright assignment 'audit' for libiberty/cp-demangle.c.

First, the data:
----------------

* Original file entered into CVS was written by Alex Samuel and copyright
CodeSourcery LLC.  Listed as 'This program' in copyright statement.

* The following people made modifications while it was listed under this
copyright.  They are all current GCC maintainers:
- samuel - Alex Samuel
  -- presumably originally under the same CodeSourcery copyright
- ghazi - Kaveh Ghazi
- phdm - Phillipe De Muyter 
  -- changes are minimal, all deletions, certainly not copyrightable
- zack - Zack Weinberg
- law - Jeff Law

The copyright header was changed by Alex Samuel (who presumably knew what
he was doing) in revision 1.23, to be copyright the FSF.
This also introduced the statement "This file is part of GNU CC".

Subsequent changes were made by (all current GCC maintainers):
- jason - Jason Merrill
- bryce - Bryce McKinlay
- samuel - Alex Samuel
- dj - DJ Delorie
- jimb - Jim Blandy
- zack - Zack Weinberg
- jakub - Jakub Jelinek
- ghazi - Kaveh Ghazi
- pme - Phil Edwards
- hjl - HJ Lu

Mark Mitchell added the libgcc exception to the copyright in revision 1.40.
Subsequent changes were made by (all but Carlo current GCC maintainers):
- pme - Phil Edwards
- bryce - Bryce McKinlay
- mmitchel - Mark Mitchell
- ghazi - Kaveh Ghazi
- jason - Jason Merrill
- danglin - Dave Anglin
- Carlo Wood
  -- single typo fix, not copyrightable

Now, the analysis:
------------------

Following the change in copyright statement to describe the file as
"Part of GNU CC", I believe that GCC copyright assignments and disclaimers
apply to it.  Since all the copyrightable edits were done by GCC maintainers,
I presume they were paperwork-complete for GCC/"GNU CC", so I'm not going to
worry about those.

The change in the copyright statement probably corresponds to a copyright
assignment by CodeSourcery.  If it does, then presumably all of Alex Samuel's
previous work is assigned and OK.  (It's also possible that the CodeSourcery
copyright was an outright error, in which case I'm not sure what to do...)

Three people other than Alex Samuel contributed potentially coprightable work
to the file prior to the copyright change:  Kaveh Ghazi, Zack Weinberg, and
Jeff Law.  

I doubt that contributions to something which was not then
marked as being part of GCC are technically covered under GCC copyright
assignments or disclaimers.  Jeff Law was at Cygnus at the time, so his
contribution may (or may not) have been covered by a later Cygnus assignment;
the others appear to have been private citizens.  ;-)  

Since all four people are current GCC maintainers, I hope that the issue
of copyright assignments on this file can be cleared up reasonably quickly.


--Nathanael


-- 
Nathanael Nerode  <neroden at gcc.gnu.org>
http://home.twcny.rr.com/nerode/neroden/fdl.html