Re: [Gnu-arch-users] GPLv2 or GPLv2+

[Alfred M. Szmidt]

   >   I put in a "reasonable best effort" on such things under the
   >   circumstances, but it would have cost (more) real money to keep
   >   all of those things in perfect order.
   >
   > Collecting copyright assignments is trivial business, and doesn't
   > require any effort at all.  Infact, it is less effort than not
   > collecting them, since if you do not, you end up with things like
   > this.

   Alfred, this is not a simple matter.  Since written forms must be
   transferred and signed, for people employed this often involves
   seeking approval and that can take months.

If you work for a company then you should seek approval for each
project you contribute to, since you might or might not be the
copyright holder of the code you write.  Most people forget to even
add a copyright line to files that they contribute a large amount of
code to, making it next to impossible when figuring out who the
copyright holders are.

So indeed, collecting copyright assignments and disclaimers is a
simple matter, it is far simpler than doing it after the fact.