Re: DCO: Was: Re: Contributing to gdb

[Mark Wielaard <mark@klomp.org>]

Hi Florian,

On Fri, Jan 17, 2025 at 11:42:19AM +0100, Florian Weimer wrote:
> * Mark Wielaard:
> 
> > I kind of agree with Eli. The current contribution policy is pretty
> > clear. But people seem to be constantly confused about the exact
> > "rules" of using a DCO and Copyright "ownership".
> >
> > Specifically what it means for company disclaimers. With the current
> > process it is clear the FSF will take care of that. With a DCO it
> > suddenly becomes the responsibility of the individual employees to make
> > sure the company agrees to them submitting to the project.
> 
> But having a copyright assignment with the FSF does not change that at
> all: an individual authorized by an organization to submit contributions
> in principle still needs to determine if any particular change can be
> contributed according to company rules.

Yes, in theory the situation is the same. But in the first case there
is an explicit question, while in the second it is implicit. While I
think it is fine for the community to rely on either the explicit or
implicit company disclaimer provided it seems more honest to be
explicit about it. Once the contribution is made the community will
rely on the certification made and the company cannot back out
anymore. It feels bad "tricking" companies into submissions. So imho
it would be good to make that explicitly clear in the explanation,
examples or text of the DCO and/or to have an explicit company
disclaimer on file like the Samba project does [*].

Cheers,

Mark

[*] https://www.samba.org/samba/devel/copyright-policy.html