Re: Incorporating patches into GNU Emacs

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    The author of the original code needs to assign the copyright to the
    FSF.  For various reasons, the FSF _must_ hold the copyright on every
    single line of code it distributes.  You can't assign a copyright that
    you have no legal right to.  Only the guy with the cool patch, or
    possibly his employer can do that.  And just because you incorporate
    his code into your own doesn't alter the fact that you don't hold the
    copyright to that code.

That is correct.  Only the person who wrote the code can
assign or disclaim the copyright on it.

    The FSF, at its discretion, can waive the requirement of an
    assignment.  What the FSF takes into account when making such a
    decision, I couldn't say.

Our lawyer says we should do this rarely, only when it is very
important.  And we want to get some other sort of contract with
the author in lieu of the normal assignment.