Update to GCC copyright assignment policy

Jakub Jelinek jakub@redhat.com
Tue Jun 1 14:15:35 GMT 2021


On Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 10:00:06AM -0400, David Edelsohn via Gcc wrote:
> GCC was created as part of the GNU Project but has grown to operate as
> an autonomous project.
> 
> The GCC Steering Committee has decided to relax the requirement to
> assign copyright for all changes to the Free Software Foundation.  GCC
> will continue to be developed, distributed, and licensed under the GNU
> General Public License v3.0. GCC will now accept contributions with or
> without an FSF copyright assignment. This change is consistent with
> the practices of many other major Free Software projects, such as the
> Linux kernel.
> 
> Contributors who have an FSF Copyright Assignment don't need to
> change anything.  Contributors who wish to utilize the Developer Certificate
> of Origin[1] should add a Signed-off-by message to their commit messages.
> Developers with commit access may add their name to the DCO list in the
> MAINTAINERS file to certify the DCO for all future commits in lieu of individual
> Signed-off-by messages for each commit.
> 
> The GCC Steering Committee continues to affirm the principles of Free
> Software, and that will never change.

What does this mean for the source file comments?

Do we continue using contrib/update-copyright.py --this-year to update
the FSF copyright notices?

When a new source file (that has copyright boilerplate, not say some small
testcase) is added by somebody submitting their work under FSF copyright
assignment, shall the
  Copyright (C) 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
be added?

What about when such a new source file is added by somebody submitting their
work under DCO?  Shall they list
  Copyright (C) 2021 John Doe
or something else (note, update-copyright.py would need all such copyright
lines in it).  If yes and later on somebody with FSF copyright assignment
modifies that, shall the
  Copyright (C) 2021 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
line be added?

Can contributors with FSF Copyright Assignment on file (or those working
for companies with company wide ones) assign all their further work or
just selected commits under DCO?

	Jakub



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