Re: Contributor Agreement/Copyright Assignment

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>]

On Wed, May 16, 2007 at 10:59:49AM -0400, Bhutani Meeta-W19091 wrote:
>  
> Motorola would like to understand if kernel.org has a contributor
> agreement (or a copyright assignment agreement) that is posted somewhere
> ? We are investigating what would be needed from a legal standpoint to
> possibly contribute in the future.

>From a legal standpoint, all Motorola has to do is to release the code 
under the terms of the GPL version 2.

Motorola (or whoever else has it) retains the copyright of the code and 
can even licence this code to other people under different terms. [1]

The mentioned "Developer's Certificate of Origin" only describes a 
formalized way to express that the code is available under the terms of 
the GPL and that you agree that the metadata will be stored 
indefinitely. Nothing interesting from a standpoint, and since you'll 
hopefully read Documentation/SubmittingPatches before submitting your 
code, you'll anyway see it when you need it.

> Thanks & Regards
> Meeta Bhutani

Hope this helps, and thanks in advance for your contributions
Adrian

[1] but after published under the GPL, it will be available under the 
    terms of the GPL forever for both the Linux kernel and other 
    projects

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed