> On the other hand, when the assignment is implicit like for LLVM, I > really don't know. You need to ask your own lawyer (not the ones from > Apple or from the U. of Illinois).
I don't believe there IS such a thing as an "implicit assignment". You either signed a contract that assigns the copyright or you haven't. If an employee of some large company (say, Microsoft) writes a patch for LLVM and submits it, what in the world would bind Microsoft to having given up their copyright interest in that patch? Certainly not some statement buried someplace in a web site.