Re: [PATCHES] 21.3.50 for Cygwin: patch 7

[Richard Stallman]

    Before you can contribute any major changes to _any_ GNU software
    and have it incorporated into the _official_ releases, you need to
    sign over your copyright to the FSF.

This applies only to some GNU packages--those that are FSF-copyrighted.

When people contribute a package to GNU, they can either keep the
copyright or transfer it to the FSF.  If they transfer it to the FSF,
then we follow these procedures.  If the developers keep the copyright,
it is up to them to decide what to do.

    Even if you have a "generic assigment" covering all changes to Emacs,
    you will typically sign a specific assignment paper if you contribute
    a larger piece of work (such as a lisp package).

Our lawyer said that an general assignment of Emacs changes can cover
a new Lisp package provided the contributor formally tells us to
consider the package a "change to Emacs".