Copyright assignments and the MAINTAINERS file

[Geoff Keating]

Joe Buck <Joe.Buck@synopsys.COM> writes:

> 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).

You mean 'had an appropriate copyright assignment', not 'have', correct?

> > * 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.

Right.  I believe that some contributors do not do this.  In
particular, sometimes people stop working on GCC altogether without
removing their name from MAINTAINERS.

> > * 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.

Do we have a list of *these* people?  Maybe we should just have a list
in MAINTAINERS of "people who can check in already approved patches
from people not on this list".

-- 
- Geoffrey Keating <geoffk@geoffk.org>