GNU C Library Looking To Drop FSF Copyright Assignment Policy

The GCC compiler has long had a requirement that all contributors assign their copyright to the Free Software Foundation. Recently GCC dropped that copyright assignment policy and now the GNU C Library is looking at making a similar move.

At the start of June, the GNU Compiler Collection decided to abandon the FSF copyright assignment requirement while now Glibc is looking to make a similar move that would go into effect at the start of August. The Glibc stewards are still seeking feedback on the matter but so far it seems the developers are overwhelmingly in favor of dropping this requirement especially as more developers try to distance themselves from the Free Software Foundation.

In place of the copyright assignment policy would be making use of the Developer Certificate of Origin and a Git Signed-off-by tag on their commits. Glibc in any case will continue to be developed under the LGPLv2.1 or later license.

The discussion on Glibc looking to drop its copyright assignment policy was started yesterday on libc-alpha.