From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Paul Pogonyshev Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta,gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Permission to use portions of the recent GNU Emacs Manual Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 18:10:21 +0200 Message-ID: <200412191810.21569.pogonyshev@gmx.net> References: <014501c4e4eb$3af838d0$0300a8c0@neeeeeee2> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1103472582 13923 80.91.229.6 (19 Dec 2004 16:09:42 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2004 16:09:42 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, xemacs-beta@xemacs.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org, bob@rattlesnake.com, stephen@xemacs.org, andy@xemacs.org Original-X-From: xemacs-beta-bounces@xemacs.org Sun Dec 19 17:09:27 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org ([199.184.165.135] ident=ident-user) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1Cg3cd-0005Ha-00 for ; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 17:09:27 +0100 Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org (ident-user@localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iBJG69uo005658; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:06:09 -0500 Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org (ident-user@localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iBJG3kMp005108 for ; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:03:46 -0500 Original-Received: (from xemacweb@localhost) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id iBJG3kbp005107 for xemacs-beta-mailman@xemacs.org; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:03:46 -0500 Original-Received: from gwyn.tux.org (ident-user@localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id iBJG3ijm005093 for ; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:03:44 -0500 Original-Received: (from mailnull@localhost) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id iBJG3iid005092 for xemacweb@tux.org; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:03:44 -0500 Original-Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by gwyn.tux.org (8.12.11/8.12.11) with SMTP id iBJG3hJw005064 for ; Sun, 19 Dec 2004 11:03:44 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 19 Dec 2004 16:03:37 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (EHLO localhost.localdomain) (195.50.12.120) by mail.gmx.net (mp018) with SMTP; 19 Dec 2004 17:03:37 +0100 X-Authenticated: #16844820 Original-To: David Kastrup , "Ben Wing" User-Agent: KMail/1.4.3 In-Reply-To: X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/622/Wed Dec 8 08:36:53 2004 clamav-milter version 0.80j on gwyn.tux.org X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/622/Wed Dec 8 08:36:53 2004 clamav-milter version 0.80j on gwyn.tux.org X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/622/Wed Dec 8 08:36:53 2004 clamav-milter version 0.80j on gwyn.tux.org X-Virus-Scanned: ClamAV 0.80/622/Wed Dec 8 08:36:53 2004 clamav-milter version 0.80j on gwyn.tux.org X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Virus-Status: Clean X-Virus-Status: Clean X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by gwyn.tux.org id iBJG3hJw005064 X-XEmacs-List: beta X-BeenThere: xemacs-beta@xemacs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: XEmacs Beta Testers List-Unsubscribe: , List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: xemacs-beta-bounces@xemacs.org Errors-To: xemacs-beta-bounces@xemacs.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.xemacs.beta:17504 gmane.emacs.devel:31274 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:31274 David Kastrup wrote: > b) why it would be technically impossible for you to change the XEmacs > manual licence to the GFDL: it does not seem like you have handed out > any written assurances that the licence is never going to change. I think because contributing a piece of work implicitly means that you agree to distribute it under the _current_ license. So, to relicense a piece of contributed work, you need an agreement from the author, either got in advance (like FSF copyright assignment includes) or got right before the license change. Since XEmacs has many contributors who hold their copyright, this means that license switch would require collecting agreements from all of them, which might be practically impossible. That said, I agree with you that this is mostly an XEmacs problem, largely caused by their policy of not collecting copyright assignments. The situation is not nice, but I don't see why FSF should go against its decision and its policies. As Robert Chassell said (or meant), FSF cannot ask other to use GFDL if it doesn't use it itself. After all, XEmacs isn't fully cooperative either, since FSF won't merge in non-assigned code. Yes, this is not a legal problem, but a matter of FSF policy, but still... Paul Pogonyshev