Copyright assignments and the MAINTAINERS file

[Joe Buck]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 01:07:57PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> So how DO we find out if someone has an appropriate copyright 
> assignment?  As the original thread noted, the current method (asking 
> contributors if they have one) is really no good.

First off, if their name is in MAINTAINERS, they have an appropriate
copyright assignment.  (There was one recent slip-up that you might have
heard about, which we fixed).

> * Everyone with commit rights needs to have an open-ended assignment of 
> some sort.  I presume that this can be checked by whoever grants commit 
> rights (a small number of people)?

Yes, this can be assumed.  However, if anyone with commit rights takes a
new job (and it isn't with a company like Red Hat or CodeSourcery that has
a blanket assignment agreement with the FSF), they need paperwork from
their new employer (no problem if someone becomes unemployed or
self-employed).  We currently rely on the contributors themselves for this.

> * Everyone *else* needs to have assignments too -- how should the people 
> committing their work, which could be anyone with commit rights, such as 
> me :-), check that these people have assignments?

If in doubt, you can ask someone who has access to the FSF copyright list
to check it for you.

> * How are we to check whether someone's open-ended assignment has 
> expired or ended for some reason?  Should we really check for every 
> commit (the only way to be really safe), or what?

We should be careful, but we don't need to be paranoid.  If a mistake is
made, it is not the end of the word, we see if the situation can be
corrected quickly and, if not, revert the patch.