[lmm]

> The FSF requires nothing of the projects; the FSF leaves the choice of copyright assignment up to the project and its maintainers.

And in the case of their own projects, the projects where the FSF is the project/the maintainers, what is it they do? They require copyright assignment.

[teddyh]

What are you talking about? The FSF is not the direct maintainer for any projects, as far as I know. The project maintainers are people.

[lmm]

Many GNU projects are maintained directly by the FSF/GNU (the same entity; their own statements acknowledge that they share personnel and have no clear boundary between them). And for many more projects they hold the copyright and provide the funding/hosting/etc. and the named maintainer is either a member or affiliated with the FSF/GNU, which suggests they exercise some control over it (e.g. the published hosting requirements for Savannah say that projects they host "should" follow the GNU hosting standards, which include requiring copyright assignment to the FSF if the FSF holds the copyright).

[teddyh]

And the named maintainer has the right to not require CLA:s for their project. The FSF does not require the maintainer to require CLA:s.

[lmm]

Well, requiring copyright assignment (not just a CLA) is in their published rules for using Savannah, and something almost all major GNU/FSF projects did in the past. Even if it's now something they merely encourage rather than require (and I'd be interested to see a public confirmation of this) my point stands.