Re: OT: copyright issues (was: Re: D Symbol Demangling)

Daniel Jacobowitz
2006-04-20T17:05:01Z

On Thu, Apr 20, 2006 at 06:39:34PM +0200, Baurzhan Ismagulov wrote:
> Great! Just to clarify: A and B are employed by a Company and the
> employer has all rights on code they produce. A has an assignment and
> contributes code to FSF. This code is also included in a closed-source
> product, distributed by the Company in binary-only form. B makes a patch
> to the code and wants to propagate it into the FSF copy. B doesn't have
> an assignment. IIUC, the above says this patch can't be accepted (I
> understand "authorship" as personal, not corporate), even though it's
> the Company who had donated code. Does this mean that, in order to have
> the patch included, B (and only B, not anyone else from the Company) has
> to sign a copyright assignment?

We're now a bit off topic for gdb-patches; you're in a whole different
kettle of fish here, once corporate assignments are involved. It
depends on the nature of the company's copyright assignment. If the
company has filed disclaimers for an individual's work, then (A) they'd
need to have disclaimers for both individuals, and (B) both individuals
would need copyright assignment. If the company has a corporate
blanket assignment, different rules apply. You should really talk to
assign@gnu.org if you have any concerns.

--
Daniel Jacobowitz
CodeSourcery