Code contributions

[Kirk Fort]

I find it a bit disheartening that hackers have to go through so many
legal loopholes to contribute to open source software.  I was not aware so
much was involved.  It seems to be turning away people from contributing.
This undermines the basis on which the free software community was
founded.  

Would it be more efficient to say something like, "Unless you
agree with us on other terms, all code that is contributed to the project
is copyrighted by the FSF, although you will be given credit"?

Most hackers don't want to worry about legal matters, they just want to
hack. Would it be legally binding to have such a default agreement, with
the act of contributing being acceptance of the terms?  And if someone
wanted the software handled under different terms, they could sign a
contract with the FSF for a special situation.

If this is not feasable, will the FSF accept GPG DSA signed electronic
documents once gpg has stablised and become 'released`?  This should be
more secure than signing a paper document, if there is some verification
so a web a trust can be built arround the DSA key.


Kirk Fort