From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.ciao.gmane.io!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Drop the Copyright Assignment requirement for Emacs Date: Sat, 09 May 2020 18:24:05 +0300 Message-ID: <831rntf7xm.fsf@gnu.org> References: <9mmFgzvrBwjt_n_VJyaJdXINraNi5HsGpwq-0MLeKiJA7kG2BQA4uywrzjyz7lpRS0OZDpjEi8lspOKYUA7P_QsODsDew_8nbH960G55fmY=@protonmail.com> <97DA7804-F647-4A1D-B8E0-AFFE7A324C64@gmail.com> <87d07xamrg.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> <878silajdl.fsf@ericabrahamsen.net> <87tv18pyh4.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83zhaih0oz.fsf@gnu.org> <83pnbegsvm.fsf@gnu.org> <83imh5hby1.fsf@gnu.org> <87o8qxjpka.fsf@mbork.pl> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="ciao.gmane.io:159.69.161.202"; logging-data="73661"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: ams@gnu.org, joaotavora@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Philippe Vaucher Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sat May 09 17:25:32 2020 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1jXRM3-000J0x-Al for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 09 May 2020 17:25:31 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:36526 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jXRM1-0006Cy-P6 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sat, 09 May 2020 11:25:29 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:41332) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jXRKu-0005mW-RH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 09 May 2020 11:24:20 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:53716) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1jXRKu-0001kE-Hv; Sat, 09 May 2020 11:24:20 -0400 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=1693 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1jXRKp-0007Qm-9k; Sat, 09 May 2020 11:24:15 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Philippe Vaucher on Sat, 9 May 2020 16:20:55 +0200) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:249466 Archived-At: > From: Philippe Vaucher > Date: Sat, 9 May 2020 16:20:55 +0200 > Cc: "Alfred M. Szmidt" , emacs-devel > > For me (and I suspect others) it was like this: I see something I'd > like to change in Emacs and I want to contribute. I take the time to > write a patch and I want to send, then I'm told I cannot send it until > I sign these papers. This annoys me, the papers looks pretty > fear-based and everywhere else open source I just send a patch and I'm > done. Those other open source entities don't seem to have legal > problems. Also it's not just something where I sign online and click > and I'm done, I have to print, sign, scan and send by email. Assigning the copyright for significant contributions is a basic requirement of all main GNU projects: GCC, Binutils, glibc, GDB, Bash, Make, Emacs, Coreutils, Grep, Guile, and many others. It doesn't matter whether we feel good or bad about it, it doesn't matter whether we like it or not. The FSF wants to protect its baby the GNU Project against hostile litigation and infringements, and the FSF lawyers say the assignment is necessary to be able to take the violating parties to the court of law and have any standing there. So it is futile to fight against this, as the FSF will not change its position. Please keep in mind that we don't _own_ these projects, we just contribute to them. We cannot dictate the project owners how to manage their projects. We can only fork them and maintain the fork on our own (not that I want to encourage anyone to fork Emacs). Or we can sign that one-time paper. Or we can disagree and refrain from contributing. But trying to change FSF's mind is a waste of breath. > This delay my patch sending several months until finally my thirst > of wanting this patch in is too strong and I bother with the > assignments. Indeed, assigning copyright only makes sense if you intend to continue contributing in the future. It is a one-time effort ("annoyance", if you wish), and then you are done.