Re: Insight and Licencing of TCL/TK Code

[Steven Johnson <sjohnson at sakuraindustries dot com>]

Jon Beniston wrote:

> >    
> >
> > > > Certainly if I were to submit TCL/TK code (which the way
> > > >        
> >   im going, im about to), i would not be assigning it's
> >   copyright to Redhat.
> >
> > See:
> >
> > http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/why-assign.html
> >
> >    
>
> Maybe he'd be happy to assign it to the FSF, but not to RedHat.
>
>  
Precisely my point, I already have an assignment on file with the FSF 
for any submissions i make to GDB.  I would consider changes to the 
TCL/TK Code of insight to be submissions to GDB.  But the file has 
"Copyright Redhat".  Im sure the code in those files isnt all from 
RedHat.  So how can they claim the copyright for the whole file?  I am 
happy to assign to the FSF.

BTW, I know the "Claim copyright to the whole file" is an accident of 
history, and not some nefarious plot or intentional scheme from the part 
of Redhat or Cygnus to disenfrancise contributors who thought they were 
contributing to GDB under assignments to the FSF.  I dont blame Redhat 
for it, im just pointing out the difficulty moving forward of 
perpetuating it. 

If we submit in future, should we wrap our TCL/TK submissions in 
"Portion Copyright FSF Start" and "End" so that in the event of a 
re-write of the rest down the line, at least the stuff that Redhat didnt 
author doesnt have to be re-invented.

It doesnt help anything else already in there that would fall under this 
cateogry, but maybe in future, we should consider it.

I also noticed this issue seems limited to the TCL/TK portions of 
insight, i havent noticed any Redhat copyrights in the C code that 
interfaces the core of GDB with the TCL/TK Code.

Steven.