Re: Tracepoints functionality for local targets

[Robert Dewar <dewar@adacore.com>]

Nicholas Mc Guire wrote:

> It is GPL V2 and not assigned to the FSF - it was funded by Siemens AG
> (Cooperate Technology) and Im talking to them - but it took 1 year to
> get them to release it under the GPL and get permission to release it to
> the public so don't expect this to happen any time soon - anyway it is a
> supprise to me that it is insufficient to release code under the GPL V2
> and frankly if the FSF requires copyright assignment then this is bad news
> for free software developers 

The FSF requires that people assign the copyright, this keeps the
copyright situation clear on the whole project. You have to be very
careful in copying code, just because someone somewhere says some
code is under the GPL does not make it so, you have to be 100% sure
that the person owning the copyright has issued the license, and the
way that FSF project does this is to insist on formal copyright
assignment. No one is compelled to do such an assignment of course,
but for the code to be part of the FSF GNU project, the FSF does
require this assignment.

> - what reason could I give any other company
> to require the same ?

The same reason that has convinced hundreds of individuals and
major corporations to assign code. If you assign the code to the
FSF, then it gets mainlined into the FSF development sources,
which means your patches are continuously tested, and you don't
have to deal with reinserting them in every new release.

If Siemens is interested in having this code be mainlined
into the GDB sources, they have to agree to the assignment.
If they are not interested in this, then they don't need
to agree, and unfortunately it won't happen.

> On the other hand if the FSF has legitimate reasons
> not to accept GPL code as it could lead to restrictions then this would
> be the case for any commercial entity as well and be really bad news for
> GPL all together. 

It's is not a matter of restrictions, just a matter of being
careful about copyright and ownership. The GPL is not some magic
that removes this requirement for diligence.

> So I still hope that the GPL V2 code would be accepted
> by the GDB people.

There does need to be an assignment for it to be incorporated