On Tue, Jun 1, 2021 at 10:40 AM Paul Koning <paulkon...@comcast.net> wrote: > > > On Jun 1, 2021, at 10:31 AM, David Edelsohn via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org> wrote: > > > > The copyright author will be listed as "Free Software Foundation, > > Inc." and/or "The GNU Toolchain Authors", as appropriate. > > What does that mean? FSF is a well defined organization. "The GNU Toolchain > Authors" sounds like one, but is it? Or is it just a label for "the set of > contributors who have contributed without assigning to FSF"? In other words, > who is the owner of such a work, the GTA, or the submitter? I'm guessing the > latter. > > That seems to create a possible future complication. Prior to this change, > the FSF (as owner of the copyright) could make changes such as replacing the > GPL 2 license by GPL 3. With the policy change, that would no longer be > possible, unless you get the approval of all the copyright holders. This may > not be considered a problem, but it does seem like a change. > > I looked at gcc.gnu.org to find the updated policy. I don't think it's > there; the "contribute" page wording still feels like the old policy. Given > the change, it would seem rather important to have the implications spelled > out in full, and the new rules clearly expressed.
The GNU Toolchain Authors are all of the authors, including those with FSF Copyright. All of the authors agree to the existing license, which is "...either version 3, or (at your option) any later version." If the project chooses to adopt a future update to the GPL, all of the authors have given permission through the existing copyright assignment or through certification of the DCO to utilize the newer license. Thanks, David
