Re: Copyright assignment form

[Jim Wilson <jimw at sifive dot com>]

On 01/15/2018 03:11 PM, Shahid Khan wrote:
> Our team at Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies, Inc. is interested in contributing patches to the upstream GCC compiler project. To get the process started, we'd like to request a copyright assignment form as per contribution guidelines outlined at https://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html.
>
> Please let me know if there are additional steps we need to take to become an effective contributor to the GCC community.

You should contact assign@gnu.org directly.  The standard forms contain 
language about patents that Qualcomm lawyers are unlikely to be 
comfortable with, and may require negotiating a non-standard agreement. 
As best as I can tell, the FSF has never received a copyright assignment 
or disclaimer from Qualcomm.  If this is the first time Qualcomm lawyers 
are talking to the FSF, this will take a while.  I would not be 
surprised if this takes a year or two.  You will also need a VP level 
signature for the forms once you get approval from Qualcomm lawyers.

You may want to consider getting a disclaimer from your employer, and 
then filing personal assignments.  It is probably easier to get a 
disclaimer from Qualcomm than an assignment, but this requires more 
paperwork, since each individual contributing then needs their own 
personal assignment.  The disclaimers also have language about patents 
that the Qualcomm lawyers may not like, so while this should be easier, 
it is still likely a difficult process.

Siddhesh can help you with this as the rules for gcc are the same as for 
glibc.

Jim