Manual contributions and copyright assignments

[Joe Buck]

On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 04:33:49AM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> I am worried about the idea that all 100 people with write access can
> install others' changes.  That means we depend on all 100 of them to
> check properly for legal papers.  It is unreliable to have 100 people
> doing this!

Don't worry; only a very small number of people have global write privilege.
The others only have permission to modify very limited areas of the compiler,
or to check in a patch that has been approved by someone with greater privilege.
Generally speaking, these people are checking in their own patches, and
all have papers on file.

> I have no objection to your allowing 100 people to install their own
> changes--if you trust them, that's good enough for me.  But unless you
> have very effective procedures for making sure all 100 people check
> papers properly, you should greatly reduce the people who are allowed
> to install changes other than their own.

That's pretty much the process we follow; when an unknown person submits
a patch, the very first question asked has to do with the status of their
papers.