Re: DCO: Was: Re: Contributing to gdb

Eli Zaretskii via Gdb
2024-06-18T11:55:18Z

> From: Arsen Arsenović <arsen@aarsen.me>
> Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, pinskia@gmail.com, gdb@sourceware.org,
> binutils@sourceware.org
> Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2024 21:15:58 +0200
>
> I know some people who refuse to contribute due to this also.

That's not necessarily relevant. We are interested in potential
contributors to GDB, who have either some code to contribute or some
practical ideas for such code, not just some people out there.

> Many don't trust the FSF, many don't want to reveal information,
> many do not see the difference between the FSF copyright process and
> a CLA (except that the latter is often easier to process..).

In general, yes, some (not many!) do. But IME with maintaining Emacs,
I have yet to bump into a person who has code to contribute and whom I
couldn't convince that the copyright assignment is not a problem (if
they even thought that to begin with).

> I understand there are good reasons for copyright assignment to the FSF,
> but the FSF seems to be considered less trustworthy nowadays, and this
> is reflected in the likelihood of (even relatively experienced!) free
> software contributors signing over copyright.

Again, not IME.

> I've, for a long time, avoided contributing to projects with 'legal
> routine' requirements (DCO included) due to the implications of sharing
> real names.

There's no need to share a real name. The assignments on file have
quite a few names that are withheld, with only a pseudonym on file.
This is a non-issue, for all practical purposes. And, as you point
out, using DCOs doesn't change this aspect in any way.

> (NOTE: I have copyright assignments on file and might file more
> ahead-of-time to avoid sinking time every time I contribute to a new
> project. It has not stopped me, but it /has/ others. I can completely
> understand those people also)

I understand them also. I'm just saying that we should patiently
explain them the facts about the assignment's meaning and practices,
and IME that has an almost 100% success rate.