"Mike Cox" ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes: > Question to the nice folks in g.m.d....... > > I have a couple of nice patches I would like to contribute to > the Gentoo project, but I have some doubts. As some people > probably already know, Gentoo requires that their contributors > transfer copyright of all contributed material to the > Gentoo Foundation, as described here: > > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/copyright/index.xml > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/copyright/assignment.pdf > http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/copyright/assignment.txt > > However, some passages in this document seem very suspicious to > my untrained, non-lawyer, eyes. Could any of the helpful folks in > g.m.d please take a look and pick it apart. My questions in > particular..... > > (1) Why would they need copyright for patches for programs they're > just packaging, but didn't write themselves? (FAQ item #3)
But then, doesn't that solve the problem? If the bug is with a program, the patch should go to the program's developer. If they are applying the patch to 3rd party programs, then it's basically a fork, a new version of an existing program. If they are relaying the patch back to the developer, then you don't need Gentoo to do it, since you should be doing it yourself. People forget, way too often, that the distributions have far more in common than they have differences. They all pull from the same pool of the kernel, the utilities and the applications. The uniqueness of a distribution is over how they do installation, the philosophy of what they include and exclude, and maybe where they put things. Individual distributions may have their own programs (such as the installer programs), and they may compile the rest in different ways, but generally there isn't much that is different from the rest. And if a patch is actually useful to a program, it should be folded into the actual program itself. Michael _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
