linux-kernel - Legal question: Author, Sign-off, Company Copyright and gmail

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <084f9151-523e-a212-bf27-d4a4c23878e4@linaro.org>
Date:   Thu, 9 Nov 2017 10:45:27 +0100
From:   Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@...aro.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Legal question: Author, Sign-off, Company Copyright and gmail

Hi all,

I noticed a practice when the patches are submitted where I'm a bit
confused about how it fits with the DCO.

People are creating gmail accounts to send patches on behalf of their
company because the company's email configuration does not allow to send
patches or adds extra infos, or whatever...

That ends up with patches submitted by a gmail account with no history
and verifiable origin and new files containing a company copyright [1].

At the first glance I would say, it is not allowed, and if a company is
willing to do opensource, it should provide the tools to its employees
to do so. But I don't want block patch submission if this practice is
tolerated.

What is the policy in this case ?

Thanks in advance.

  -- Daniel

[1] https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10045815/

-- 
 <http://www.linaro.org/> Linaro.org │ Open source software for ARM SoCs

Follow Linaro:  <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Linaro> Facebook |
<http://twitter.com/#!/linaroorg> Twitter |
<http://www.linaro.org/linaro-blog/> Blog