GCC drops its copyright-assignment requirement

The GCC compiler, like other GNU projects, has long required contributorsto complete paperwork assigning the copyrights on their work to the FreeSoftware Foundation. That requirement has just been dropped, andcontributors can now attach a Signed-off-by tag indicating use of theDevelopers Certificate ofOrigin instead. "This change is consistent withthe practices of many other major Free Software projects, such as theLinux kernel." Initial discussionsuggests that some developers were surprised by this change and are yet to be convinced that it is a goodidea.