Re: That dwarf2read patch i just submitted

[Elena Zannoni <ezannoni at cygnus dot com>]

The person has submitted a few other patches, always in that same
time period (spring of 99). I haven't find an assignment from the FSF.

Time to ask.

Elena


Kevin Buettner writes:
 > On Oct 23,  4:38pm, Daniel Berlin wrote:
 > 
 > > Sigh.
 > > I'll redo the work then.
 > > Is there any way i can give him credit, without having to get a
 > > copyright assignment from him?
 > 
 > In this case, you should first check to see if he has a copyright
 > assignment on file.  If he does, there's no problem.
 > 
 > If he doesn't, contact him and find out if he's willing to provide
 > one.  This can be the hard part because, although he may be perfectly
 > willing, his employer might not be.  (The employer also has to sign a
 > copyright disclaimer.) There's an added difficulty if he's changed
 > employer's since writing the patch.  (A former employer may be even
 > more unwilling than normal to sign a copyright disclaimer for work
 > done by an ex-employee.)
 > 
 > I know from first hand experience that it can be difficult to get the
 > employer to sign the copyright disclaimer.  Some are perfectly
 > willing, but their legal departments decide to hold things up.
 > 
 > Anyway... if you have trouble getting a disclaimer from either
 > the individual in question or their employer, I suppose that you
 > could try rewriting the patch yourself.  But it is probably better
 > describe in English (without using code) what needs to be done
 > to this file and get someone else who hasn't seen the patch to
 > do it.  I suppose you could then provide credit by saying something
 > like "Inspired by (but not based on) the work of ...".
 > 
 > Or, if you had an obviously different implementation, that too
 > would likely suffice.
 > 
 > If you do decide to reimplement Brian's patch, you should seek Andrew
 > Cagney's opinion first in order to make sure that your approach is
 > acceptable to the FSF.
 > 
 > Kevin
 >