We don't require copyright assignment or any fancy paperwork! Just make sure you specify the license and include a copyright statement with your name and the current year. New code should (please) be licensed GPLv2+. I say v2 instead of v3 because some code from Arch is GPLv2 (no "or any later version"), and having to worry about which programs can be combined is a huge pain. Copyright statements for most code, should be of the form: # Copyright (C) YEARS NAME For 3rd-party code, which has been imported, indent it a bit: # Copyright (C) YEARS NAME Always put a `# License:` line specifying the license of that file.