GNU Info
(maintain.info)Copyright Papers
Copyright Papers
================
If you maintain an FSF-copyrighted package, then you should follow
certain legal procedures when incorporating changes written by other
people. This ensures that the FSF has the legal right to distribute the
package, and the right to defend its free status in court if necessary.
*Before* incorporating significant changes, make sure that the
person who wrote the changes has signed copyright papers and that the
Free Software Foundation has received and signed them. We may also need
a disclaimer from the person's employer.
To check whether papers have been received, look in
`/gd/gnuorg/copyright.list'. If you can't look there directly,
<fsf-records@gnu.org> can check for you. Our clerk can also check for
papers that are waiting to be entered and inform you when expected
papers arrive.
The directory `/gd/gnuorg' is found on the GNU machines; if you are
the maintainer of a GNU package, you should have an account on them.
Contact <accounts@gnu.org> if you don't have one. (You can also ask
for accounts for people who help you a large amount in working on the
package.)
In order for the contributor to know person should sign papers, you
need to ask for the necessary papers. If you don't know per well, and
you don't know that person is used to our ways of handling copyright
papers, then it might be a good idea to raise the subject with a
message like this:
Would you be willing to assign the copyright to the Free Software
Foundation, so that we could install it in PROGRAM?
or
Would you be willing to sign a copyright disclaimer to put this
change in the public domain, so that we can install it in PROGRAM?
If the contributor wants more information, you can send per
`/gd/gnuorg/conditions.text', which explains per options (assign vs.
disclaim) and their consequences.
Once the conversation is under way and the contributor is ready for
more details, you should send one of the templates that are found in
`/gd/gnuorg'. This section explains which templates you should use in
which circumstances. *Please don't use any of the templates except for
those listed here, and please don't change the wording.*
Once the conversation is under way, you can send the contributor the
precise wording and instructions by email. Before you do this, make
sure to get the current version of the template you will use! We change
these templates occasionally--don't keep using an old version.
For large changes, ask the contributor for an assignment. Send per a
copy of the file `/gd/gnuorg/request-assign.changes'.
For medium to small changes, request a disclaimer by sending per the
file `/gd/gnuorg/request-disclaim.changes'.
If the contributor is likely to keep making changes, person might
want to sign an assignment for all per future changes to the program.
So it is useful to offer per that alternative. If person wants to do
it that way, send per the `/gd/gnuorg/request-assign.future'.
When you send a `request-' file, you don't need to fill in anything
before sending it. Just send the file verbatim to the contributor. The
file gives per instructions for how to ask the FSF to mail per the
papers to sign. The `request-' file also raises the issue of getting a
copyright disclaimer from the contributor's employer.
For less common cases, we have template files you should send to the
contributor. Be sure to fill in the name of the person and the name of
the program in these templates, where it says NAME OF PERSON and NAME OF
PROGRAM, before sending; otherwise person might sign without noticing
them, and the papers would be useless. Note that in some templates
there is more than one place to put the name of the program or the name
of the person; be sure to change all of them. All the templates raise
the issue of an employer's disclaimer as well.
You do not need to ask for separate papers for a manual that is
distributed only in the software package it describes. But if we
sometimes distribute the manual separately (for instance, if we publish
it as a book), then we need separate legal papers for changes in the
manual. For smaller changes, use `/gd/gnuorg/disclaim.changes.manual';
for larger ones, use `/gd/gnuorg/assign.changes.manual'. To cover both
past and future changes to a manual, you can use
`/gd/gnuorg/assign.future.manual'. For a translation of a manual, use
`/gd/gnuorg/assign.translate.manual'.
If a contributor is reluctant to sign an assignment for a large
change, and is willing to sign a disclaimer instead, that is
acceptable, so you should offer this alternative if it helps you reach
agreement. We prefer an assignment for a larger change, so that we can
enforce the GNU GPL for the new text, but a disclaimer is enough to let
us use the text.
If you maintain a collection of programs, occasionally someone will
contribute an entire separate program or manual that should be added to
the collection. Then you can use the files `request-assign.program',
`disclaim.program', `assign.manual', and `disclaim.manual'. We very
much prefer an assignment for a new separate program or manual, unless
it is quite small, but a disclaimer is acceptable if the contributor
insists on handling the matter that way.
*Although there are other templates besides the ones listed here,
they are for special circumstances; please do not use them without
getting advice from <assign@gnu.org>.*
If you are not sure what to do, then please ask <assign@gnu.org> for
advice; if the contributor asks you questions about the meaning and
consequences of the legal papers, and you don't know the answers, you
can forward them to <assign@gnu.org> and we will answer.
*Please do not try changing the wording of a template yourself. If
you think a change is needed, please talk with <assign@gnu.org>, and we
will work with a lawyer to decide what to do.*
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