Re: Update to GCC copyright assignment policy

[Paul Koning via Gcc]

> On Jun 1, 2021, at 12:44 PM, Joseph Myers <jos...@codesourcery.com> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 1 Jun 2021, David Edelsohn via Gcc wrote:
> 
>> The copyright author will be listed as "Free Software Foundation,
>> Inc." and/or "The GNU Toolchain Authors", as appropriate.
> 
> And copyright notices naming "The GNU Toolchain Authors" should not 
> include a date - that's following the recommendations at 
> https://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects/
>  
> for the form of copyright notices in projects with many copyright holders.
> 
> -- 
> Joseph S. Myers
> jos...@codesourcery.com

That's a nice document, but it makes clear that a collective designation of a 
group of authors in a copyright notice is just a convenient shorthand.  It 
mentions that the copyright notice is just a notice that doesn't actually 
affect the copyright (which remains with the individual authors or their 
employers, unless assigned).  So "GNU Toolchain Authors" is a description 
referring to a set of individual owners, one that changes over time.  It 
doesn't describe a legal body, and it isn't an owner of anything.

        paul