The content of the files is somewhat unhelpful, as I don't believe people normally added their names to the source code. A few major contributors did, but in general that's not the style in GNU projects: attributions go into a ChangeLog, which mspgcc never maintained, so the repository is the only record, and that only if whoever did commit things provided an attribution in the commit message. Some contributions may have come through the mailing list to a maintainer who added them without any record in the repository of where things came from.
Since major refactoring has occurred over the years and the maintainers may not have retained attribution, it might also be necessary to look at the patches to determine whether a significant contribution remained past the point where any clue of its origin had been removed. The periods when the enhancements were maintained as jumbo patches rather than individual changes obscures a lot of the history. It all depends how much diligence you want to apply. It's helpful for everybody to be aware that it's these legal issues that are the main reason msp430 support is not in upstream GCC now, even though every file says it's copyright is owned by FSF. (msp430-libc is much more diverse, but it's mostly BSD, not GPL, and we know where everything but one routine came from.) Since I don't pretend to understand IP law, I'm staying out of this beyond making sure my own contributions aren't an impediment. Peter On Thu, Apr 12, 2012 at 5:32 AM, JMGross <msp...@grossibaer.de> wrote: > > This auto-request does not cover those people who contributed but never > personally checked anything in. > (Like myself with the MSPGCC 3.x header files for the 5438 - just as example, > as as these are not related to the project in question) > So besides the repository checkins, informations in the files itself should > be checked too. Quite a task. > > Good Luck, > JMGross > > ----- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ----- > Von: Peter Bigot > An: GCC for MSP430 - http://mspgcc.sf.net > Gesendet am: 11 Apr 2012 19:37:23 > Betreff: Re: [Mspgcc-users] copyright assignment request: gcc, binutils, gdb > > gmail filled in the wrong gcc-related mailing list; I've taken this > back where it belongs. > > However, if there are any folks on here who ever contributed to mspgcc > in any material way, you may find yourself being asked to file such an > assignment, if you haven't done so already. I think there are at > least twenty names in the historical git repository that might have to > be tracked down before FSF would accept the back end into gcc, and the > updates for 430X support into binutils and gdb. > > Peter > > On Wed, Apr 11, 2012 at 12:29 PM, Peter Bigot <big...@acm.org> wrote: >> I'm maintaining an out-of-tree back-end (Texas Instruments MSP430) >> based on years of contributions from a variety of people, affecting >> binutils, gcc, and gdb. Whether it can ever be merged (some of the >> original contributors have disappeared), I'd like an assignment form >> for what I've done so far and in the future so my own contributions >> don't prevent this. Some of this was personal; some under an >> employer; some as a contractor. Thanks. >> >> Peter > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Better than sec? Nothing is better than sec when it comes to > monitoring Big Data applications. Try Boundary one-second > resolution app monitoring today. Free. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Mspgcc-users mailing list > Mspgcc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mspgcc-users > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. > Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. > Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! > http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 > _______________________________________________ > Mspgcc-users mailing list > Mspgcc-users@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mspgcc-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For Developers, A Lot Can Happen In A Second. Boundary is the first to Know...and Tell You. Monitor Your Applications in Ultra-Fine Resolution. Try it FREE! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Boundary-d2dvs2 _______________________________________________ Mspgcc-users mailing list Mspgcc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/mspgcc-users
