{"id":100422,"date":"2021-06-03T16:23:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-03T14:23:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/blog\/novosti-interneta\/proekt-gcc-razreshil-priyom-izmenenij-bez-peredachi-fondu-spo-prav-na-kod"},"modified":"2021-06-03T16:23:37","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T14:23:37","slug":"proekt-gcc-razreshil-priyom-izmenenij-bez-peredachi-fondu-spo-prav-na-kod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/en\/blog\/news\/proekt-gcc-razreshil-priyom-izmenenij-bez-peredachi-fondu-spo-prav-na-kod","title":{"rendered":"The GCC project has allowed the acceptance of changes without transferring rights to the code to the Open Source Foundation.","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
The committee managing the development of the GCC compiler set (GCC Steering Committee) has approved the cessation of the practice of mandatory transfer of property rights to the Software Preservation Fund for code. Developers wishing to contribute changes to the GCC project are no longer required to sign a CLA agreement with the Software Preservation Fund. To participate in development, one only needs to confirm that the developer has the right to transfer the code and is not attempting to claim ownership of someone else's code. <\/p>\n
Developers who do not wish to sign the CLA agreement with the OSI Foundation are given the option to use the terms of the Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO), which have been in effect since 2004 when submitting changes to the Linux kernel. According to DCO rules, authorship is tracked by attaching the line \"Signed-off-by: developer name and email\" to each change. By attaching this signature to the patch, the developer confirms their authorship of the submitted code and agrees to its distribution as part of the project or as code under a free license. <\/p>\n
Previously, developers would enter into a special agreement transferring all property rights to the code to the Software Preservation Fund, but now such an agreement is signed at the developer's discretion, allowing them to retain rights to their code. Thus, the property rights to GCC code will now be distributed between the Software Preservation Fund and developers who do not sign the agreement. <\/p>\n
Such distribution complicates changing the project\u2019s distribution terms, as changing the license will require obtaining personal consent from each developer who has not transferred rights to the OSI Foundation. However, stopping the transfer of rights to the OSI Foundation will not complicate potential transitions to future versions of the GPL license, as GCC is distributed under the \"GPLv3 or newer\" license, allowing for a switch to GPLv4 without separate agreements with each developer. One positive outcome of abandoning the mandatory rights transfer is the increased appeal of corporate participation in GCC development and the involvement of employees from large companies, who previously needed to obtain additional agreement to sign the agreement through various instances and legal services. For example, Apple once refused to transfer its changes to GCC to the OSI Foundation and shifted its focus to the development of LLVM. <\/p>\n
By concentrating property rights in one hand, the SPO Fund acted as a guarantor of maintaining the unchanged distribution policy of projects only under free licenses and performed the task of protecting the community from changing the originally planned development course of the project (for example, blocking the potential introduction of a dual\/commercial license or the release of closed proprietary products under a separate agreement with the code authors). The SPO Fund could also participate in resolving legal conflicts on behalf of the developers and alone make decisions about changing licensing conditions (for example, forcing a transition to a new version of the GPL license). <\/p>\n
Some developers criticized the actions of the GCC steering committee, which approved the decision without prior discussion in the community. To be fair, there was discussion, but it focused on the feasibility of continuing the previous interaction between GCC and the GNU project and the OSI Foundation. Echoes of this discussion can be found in the phrase mentioned in the announcement: \"GCC was created as part of the GNU project but has matured to operate as an independent project.\" <\/p>\n
Concerns arise from the fact that without centralized ownership of all code rights, confusion may occur when resolving licensing issues. Previously, all claims of licensing violations were handled through interaction with a single organization, but now the source of violations, including unintentional ones, has become unpredictable and requires alignment with each individual participant. An example is provided with the Linux kernel, where individual kernel developers initiate lawsuits, sometimes with the aim of personal gain. \n Source: opennet.ru<\/a> <\/p>","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":"