The idea is that discovery of the true rightsholder is a natural byproduct of the copyright assignment process. With the formal process in place, it's much les

The idea is that discovery of the true rightsholder is a natural byproduct of the copyright assignment process. With the formal process in place, it's much less susceptible to the risk of accidentally accepting code that exists as a work of corporate authorship than it would be if people just start sending in patches and you apply them.