Re: GCC 3.0 released

[Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de>]

Ted Dennison<dennison@telepath.com> writes:

> To be fair, the phase I'm stuck on isn't really the copyright
> assignment, its getting blessed as a "GNU project". My first email
> took 2.3 months to get answered (I'd forgotten that I'd even sent
> it). The answer asked for more info, which I sent off about 20 days
> ago...

Regarding the 'GNU' label, RMS sent me a few formal requirements
(Texinfo documentation, no references to proprietary software, and so
on) and told me to ask Robert Dewar for any other details.

The GNU Ada Database Environment just started to use the 'GNU' label,
without any confirmation...  Most GNU software projects do so, it
seems.

> Not that I'm ticked or anything. They have quite limited resources,
> and I'd much rather see what they do have spent on software
> development than on paper-pushing staff.

Well, this stuff is certainly important, too. Look at the IPFilter
confusion for an example of what can happen if things go wrong. With
FSF-copyrighted software, I'm confident that it's really free software
with a license situation which is not murky.

>>OTOH, the copyright assignment stuff really slows down development in
>>some areas.  For example, at the moment, our university cannot donate
>>code to the FSF because of legal matters (the assignment contract is
>>completely incompatible with German law).  In fact, someone already
> 
> It looks like they need some German legal work. Yet another area
> where I'd rather see them spend their limited resources than on
> processing my silly request.

From a certain point of view, our request is as silly as yours.  Quite
a few Germans have signed copyright assignments in the past, and now
somebody claims that German law explicitly forbids copyright
assignment!