[AWS] AWS svn and development process

[Thomas Løcke]

On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 11:47 AM, Ludovic Brenta
<ludovic at ludovic-brenta.org> wrote:
> The GCC web site[1] says: "Small changes can be accepted without a
> copyright disclaimer or a copyright assignment on file."  The copyright
> assignment is necessary, however, for "significant changes".  I believe
> that "significant" means "having creative value"; "small" means corrections
> of typos or mechanical changes without intellectual value.
>
> [1] http://gcc.gnu.org/contribute.html


Thank you for this and the other links. Good stuff.


> If I were the FSF, I would view this as "significant" since there is
> authorship (intellectual work) involved.


OK. Good to know.


> Yes, you can, by means of a copyright assignment.  If you do not assign
> your copyright explicitly, then it remains with you, the author.  Or, you
> could explicitly place your contributions in the public domain; this would
> allow AdaCore to license them under GPL (for libre developers) or GMGPL
> (for paying customers).  However, not all jurisdictions allow an author to
> place their works in the public domain; I believe Germany is one that
> forbids this.


So if I explicitly assign my copyright, then AdaCore can't use the
contribution in AWS as they wish?

What I'm interested in, is contributing with what I can to AWS, in a
way that make the contribution (code/docs) as readily available to the
AWS project as possible. Does that mean I should forfeit my copyright,
or what would you suggest? As far as I understand the articles from
the links you've provided, this is generally considered a bad idea.


> By the way, "not caring" is not an option.  If you "don't care" about the
> law, the law does and will care about you!  Also, AdaCore may have a policy
> regarding contributions; I hope Pascal or someone else can answer my
> initial question and clarify this policy for me.


Yes, I too would like to know what the official policy is, so I don't
make a mess of things.  :o)

Thank you for your reply and help.

Regards,
Thomas Løcke