Re: re s390 gdb patches

Re: re s390 gdb patches

[Denis Joseph Barrow]

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Hi Uli,
I cc'ed the mailing list as other people may be intrested in this info.

D.J. Barrow Gnu/Linux for S/390 kernel developer
eMail: djbarrow@de.ibm.com,barrow_dj@yahoo.com
Phone: +49-(0)7031-16-2583
IBM Germany Lab, Schönaicherstr. 220, 71032 Böblingen

---------------------- Forwarded by Denis Joseph Barrow/Germany/Contr/IBM
on 23.08.2001 16:11 ---------------------------

Ulrich Weigand
23.08.2001 15:38

To:   Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>
cc:   Denis Joseph Barrow/Germany/Contr/IBM@IBMDE, Christoph
      Arenz/Germany/IBM@IBMDE
From: Ulrich Weigand/Germany/IBM@IBMDE
Subject:  Re: re gdb patches  (Document link: Denis Joseph Barrow)

Hello Andrew,

Denis asked me to contact you about the legal issues.

>As they say, I am not a lawyer.  I can't comment on the validity of a
>letter when the digital signature of the attached files doesn't match.
>My gut reaction is to think it is not valid.
>
>Move significantly, I think this need for letters is going to cause
>problems down the track.  Everytime an IBM employee tries to get a new
>non-trivial change into GDB another letter is required.  Everytime
>someone, not from IBM, posts a patch, and an IBM employee decides to
>significantly revise and then re-submit the change, another letter is
>required.

Of course the 'Software Letter' procedure is not ideal.  However,
I'm afraid it is currently the only way that is open to us.  We have
been working on the problem of contributing to FSF projects (with the
required copyright assignments) for a long time now, and that
procedure is the result of all those discussions.

The core problem is that our lawyers categorically refuse to sign
the original copyright assignment forms as provided by the FSF,
because they feel that various issues are not sufficiently addressed
there (e.g. in the area of patents).  (I'm not completely familiar
with the details, but I'm not a lawyer either ...)  Therefore, our
laywers have negotiated with the FSF laywers for months and finally
came to an agreement acceptable to both sides (and even blessed by
Stallman himself ;-)).

The result of this agreement was the 'Software Letter' process,
where IBM and the FSF have signed a base agreement transferring
copyright to the FSF for all source code specifically mentioned
in a 'Software Letter'.  For every piece of code we want to transfer,
we have to make out this letter, referring to the base agreement,
and designating the code in question.

You're right, of course, that this is more tedious that the FSF's
usual way (signing of a 'future' copyright assignment that covers
all future changes to a given program), but there's really nothing
we can do about that.

The 'Software Letter' process has now been in effect for over a year,
and has resulted in S/390 code being accepted into glibc and binutils
(and also gcc, but that's yet another story), so I hope that we can
also manage to contribute the gdb backend under the same rules.

Of course, we don't ask you to accept any code where the legal status
is unclear.  We will make out a software letter for the initial
patch that Denis will prepare (with matching signature, of course),
and we will make a new letter for any future change where you think it
necessary.  (I hope that small bugfixes and the like are acceptable
without an extra letter, but that's up to you to decide.)

Is this acceptable to you?


Mit freundlichen Gruessen / Best Regards

Ulrich Weigand

--
  Dr. Ulrich Weigand
  Linux for S/390 Design & Development
  IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH, Schoenaicher Str. 220, 71032 Boeblingen
  Phone: +49-7031/16-3727   ---   Email: Ulrich.Weigand@de.ibm.com

Re: re s390 gdb patches

[Andrew Cagney]

> Is this acceptable to you?

As they say, not my problem :-)  It is Denis (and other IBM.de 
employees) that will unfortunatly be constantly climbing over hurdle.

Remember, I've suggested on several occasions that Denis simply transfer 
the code, as-is, to the FSF so that others were free to work on it.

	Andrew

Re: re s390 gdb patches

[Ulrich Weigand]

Andrew Cagney wrote:

>As they say, not my problem :-)  It is Denis (and other IBM.de
>employees) that will unfortunatly be constantly climbing over hurdle.

That's OK, we're used to that by now ;-)

>Remember, I've suggested on several occasions that Denis simply transfer
>the code, as-is, to the FSF so that others were free to work on it.

We can certainly do that.  I'll get a software letter prepared and
sent to the FSF asap.


Mit freundlichen Gruessen / Best Regards

Ulrich Weigand

--
  Dr. Ulrich Weigand
  Linux for S/390 Design & Development
  IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH, Schoenaicher Str. 220, 71032 Boeblingen
  Phone: +49-7031/16-3727   ---   Email: Ulrich.Weigand@de.ibm.com

Re s390 gdb patches

[DJBARROW]

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Hi Andrew,

As you already know but I probably phrased it badly
Boas has to post a letter to gnu.org handing over the "ownership" of the
sources to gnu.org.

The way I was planning on working this rather than having Boas fill out
multiple letters is that
he posts one letter when the patches get accepted by you all.

He also needs to post an md5 checksum to authenticate the patches ( I think
this is an IBM thing I saw no
mention of it on the release letter) for more info on md5 look at the
md5sum command.

If possible give me some feedback on the patches this morning as I'll be
out for the rest of the week.


D.J. Barrow Linux for S/390 kernel developer
eMail: djbarrow@de.ibm.com,barrow_dj@yahoo.com
Phone: +49-(0)7031-16-2583
IBM Germany Lab, Schönaicherstr. 220, 71032 Böblingen


Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com> on 19.09.2000 07:01:37

Please respond to Andrew Cagney <ac131313@cygnus.com>

To:   Denis Joseph Barrow/Germany/Contr/IBM@IBMDE
cc:   Boas Betzler/Germany/IBM@IBMDE, Gregory Burke/Poughkeepsie/IBM@IBMUS,
      gdb-patches@sourceware.cygnus.com, Michael Snyder
      <msnyder@redhat.com>
Subject:  Re:




DJBARROW@de.ibm.com wrote:
>
> Hi,
> I forgot in the last note, let Boas & me know if the patches are accepted
> or rejected so that we can
> send the correct md5 checksums & the release letter.

Puzzled expression.

I'm pretty sure that parts of the changes will need more work (that is
without looking at them ;-).  This sort of thing needs to be done
incrementally.  It is simply a part of life.

What exactly do you mean when you refer to an md5 checksum and release
letter?  For this to work, you'll need to assign the changes and then
set up some sort of arangement where by you can continue to submit
patches.

I'm sorry but I'm confused.

     Andrew


> D.J. Barrow Linux for S/390 kernel developer
> eMail: djbarrow@de.ibm.com,barrow_dj@yahoo.com
> Phone: +49-(0)7031-16-2583
> IBM Germany Lab, Schönaicherstr. 220, 71032 Böblingen