Re: Precisely why can't official FSF GNAT maintainers copy bug fixes in GNAT & its GCC-contained runtime en masse from GNAT GPL Community Edition?

["Dan'l Miller" <optikos@verizon.net>]

On Thursday, May 3, 2018 at 5:02:52 PM UTC-5, Paul Rubin wrote:
> "Dan'l Miller" writes:
> > But the rights to copy have already been irrevocably •assigned• to FSF,
> 
> Do you know the terms of the assignment contract?

“When a group at NYU developed the GNU Ada Compiler, with funding from the US Air Force, the contract explicitly called for donating the resulting code to the Free Software Foundation.”
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/university.html

It is only a matter of effort to find that US Air Force contract in the public records of the federal government.

Here is some prior(-to-now) edition of the assignment contract:
http://www.dreamsongs.com/IHE/IHE-110.html

This is the process, specifying the content of the assignment contract:
https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Papers.html

pertinent commentary on it:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html

> >> Anyway, when you
> > “you” = AdaCore here?
> 
> No, "you" = Dan'l Miller,

No, I am not an official maintainer of FSF GNAT.  I speak only of official maintainers of FSF GNAT.  Quit casting aspersions on my personal asparagus.  I am merely a passive observer, a spectator, chewing popcorn, sitting in my seat in the audience.

> > Remember, wasn't AdaCore the party who removed the FSF's Runtime
> > Exception via a script •after• AdaCore irrevocably assigning the
> > source code to FSF?
> 
> The runtime exception still applies to the version that FSF got.

What FSF got was irrevocable assignment of all ownership.  The content of the files doesn't matter to the owner of the legal rights to that content.  As assignee, FSF owns the content of those rights-assigned files no matter what the assigner legitimately put into them as work for hire.