From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?UTF-8?Q?Andreas_R=c3=b6hler?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Please explain the FSF copyright assignment thing Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:16:22 +0200 Message-ID: <87b29866-51a6-05b5-c08f-94201bce3d89@online.de> References: NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------1BEFEB8DC23D31182D479719" X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1500357733 1007 195.159.176.226 (18 Jul 2017 06:02:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2017 06:02:13 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Icedove/45.6.0 Cc: Yuri Khan To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Jul 18 08:02:06 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1dXLa5-00083q-2N for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:02:01 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:54166 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXLaA-0007ao-Oh for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 02:02:06 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54719) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXLZd-0007ah-Tk for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 02:01:35 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXLZZ-0005J9-23 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 02:01:33 -0400 Original-Received: from mout.kundenserver.de ([212.227.126.187]:53757) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_128_CBC_SHA1:16) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXLZY-0005HY-M6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 02:01:28 -0400 Original-Received: from [192.168.178.35] ([77.12.24.190]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue001 [212.227.15.167]) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 0Lem1n-1dyyPU3lwF-00qlzC; Tue, 18 Jul 2017 08:01:24 +0200 In-Reply-To: X-Provags-ID: V03:K0:cwZpvmyaYgmWSrDbDcgvyumwoF51cHZQ25vndDTAkQ9QoMIz4WH mlNd3J3e+NzmqZDJTfgZwrIbuW13xSmsuHjOhb0ogsf+7bJF0SiqkxU0ByYE+vrTdvViMTK 207a0ieaK18724IvFYCSX/4FuVISIzO2dBlm8R/JWPUNGCcJCnfQbimf44AXcytnW03jGMp pxFgrur+Bh1+QDuKAHE2w== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V01:K0:P08Wfi1c6F8=:kR4h0A4K1qgjmAoGl2deaP 86HMTStZVsv3xmeVcsJSJsfE3/gmjzptOY5rUPw8EdxMPdARZ7FivWOHzhfcigWYNBcwa4MW6 O85VRxoxCdGZpgf76oI61bFTJF43Sn5EX6mH6IzRSNjNg582a9Kg/G5LV+RZ0XhNIQV5F7nAu PkerkIq9eFQLCZntDYSPZuEUcLv8azwlgphijVTMnGDIIHWpJOjJqAHuiF1pZvf7/2sKAjeAg damqUWbvOlUz2spkhe7rPx4kU4m9INzRzdko4yODLaQPDeq0YyxW7FTiEfRKmx1tqu8un14B6 ZqcjH8qorhs4/Qu3wh6K2yS/GUrmMFTZhlM+2kRvDvLQcQQaJZbQjV1+RU1Kt1dComi1/LZN7 +9UVu6o7ko5P2o9VSXHCSah891U5BG+MMsR8t81xUX5D8cSIhlOXDhEBOBkC/mj/gAVdPmctx lbbzMy31s3KDBj0iuI2XhmACHjJ8Ih/OeCD5Pi79t2vfJgoOXcnFpi08tGN8b5u2QSvYi9R6X TyVUv44RTTeVnq6ac/kiDZlvzmdxz/cVEJkphzTc6X5lECamPr+L/wJfQe2e06hryIwm8H90/ QetgSXJL1RaCtQjqQNjOBv+yQ5elFLy+uLslS+7HzLF8bkSe1qIKsU+Wp5wV9ZOljtmYqqhfF Yjo4vhTSlJWit4NLuPsay4PzAZCeufg8C229gLnf1OzBhrXa9sNixFCJf5Xo2gsVEp3L2LW+q GKn6LlLxFNsD32/lC+WDJSH2n3Okht2rvSc0z23rD5po1SUxlyEvmpL9xr0= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 212.227.126.187 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:216814 Archived-At: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------1BEFEB8DC23D31182D479719 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On 13.07.2017 21:12, Yuri Khan wrote: > On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 12:16 AM, Filipe Silva wrote: > >> With the recent activity regarding RMS wishing that someone would come up >> and write a replacement for magit that could be bundled inside emacs, and >> give FSF the whole copyright assignment, I cannot help but be intrigued: >> what good do these required copyright assignments do to the free software >> community? > If you write a package and distribute it under GPL, a malicious user > can use your code in a derived work and distribute that under a > non-free license, in violation of GPL. What would stop FSF to assist defending the authors rights? Why FSF might not take over the risk of a sue than, provide layers etc.? > If you have assigned copyright to FSF, then FSF can sue that violator > and have a probability of winning and forcing them to either publish > their improvements under GPL, or stop distributing their derived work. Could you point me at some example? AFAIK from a case sue has been brought forward by the individual author at his own risk, not by FSF. > > On the other hand, if you hold the copyright, you will probably not > have the resources and/or experience to sue, the violator will go > unpunished, and may successfully compete with you as far as detracting > users from your project. > > One specific case is if you yourself go evil and decide to stop > distributing your package freely and make it non-free. As a copyright > holder, you legally can do that. If you are the dominating contributor > of your package, many of your users will stay with the new evil you. > And minor contributors will probably not sue because see previous > paragraph. These things actually happened. > > Thus, assigning copyright to FSF protects the project against you going evil. --------------1BEFEB8DC23D31182D479719 Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit



On 13.07.2017 21:12, Yuri Khan wrote:
On Fri, Jul 14, 2017 at 12:16 AM, Filipe Silva <filipe.silva@gmail.com> wrote:


With the recent activity regarding RMS wishing that someone would come up
and write a replacement for magit that could be bundled inside emacs, and
give FSF the whole copyright assignment, I cannot help but be intrigued:
what good do these required copyright assignments do to the free software
community?

If you write a package and distribute it under GPL, a malicious user
can use your code in a derived work and distribute that under a
non-free license, in violation of GPL.

What would stop FSF to assist defending the authors rights?
Why FSF might not take over the risk of a sue than, provide layers etc.?



If you have assigned copyright to FSF, then FSF can sue that violator
and have a probability of winning and forcing them to either publish
their improvements under GPL, or stop distributing their derived work.


Could you point me at some example?

AFAIK from a case sue has been brought forward by the individual author at his own risk, not by FSF.





On the other hand, if you hold the copyright, you will probably not
have the resources and/or experience to sue, the violator will go
unpunished, and may successfully compete with you as far as detracting
users from your project.

One specific case is if you yourself go evil and decide to stop
distributing your package freely and make it non-free. As a copyright
holder, you legally can do that. If you are the dominating contributor
of your package, many of your users will stay with the new evil you.
And minor contributors will probably not sue because see previous
paragraph. These things actually happened.

Thus, assigning copyright to FSF protects the project against you going evil.



    

    

  


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