From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: David Kastrup Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Lisp's future Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:12:14 +0200 Organization: Organization?!? Message-ID: <87ha03rhip.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> References: <87wq97i78i.fsf@earlgrey.lan> <87sijqxzr2.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <877g11c8wh.fsf@gmx.us> <87wq91uhe8.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <8738bpc6qv.fsf@gmx.us> <87oaucvrlp.fsf@newcastle.ac.uk> <87lhpg8ooc.fsf@gmx.us> <87fvfoxcoe.fsf@ferrier.me.uk> <87y4tfzy3j.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1411125187 29548 80.91.229.3 (19 Sep 2014 11:13:07 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 11:13:07 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 19 13:13:00 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw7Y-0001cA-Hg for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:13:00 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57486 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw7Y-0000ox-2q for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:13:00 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33289) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw7D-0000nt-RK for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:12:45 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw77-0005C9-R4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:12:39 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:54965) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw77-0005Bg-KR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:12:33 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1XUw70-0001PP-7x for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:12:26 +0200 Original-Received: from x2f43f31.dyn.telefonica.de ([2.244.63.49]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:12:26 +0200 Original-Received: from dak by x2f43f31.dyn.telefonica.de with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Fri, 19 Sep 2014 13:12:26 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 45 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: x2f43f31.dyn.telefonica.de X-Face: 2FEFf>]>q>2iw=B6, xrUubRI>pR&Ml9=ao@P@i)L:\urd*t9M~y1^:+Y]'C0~{mAl`oQuAl \!3KEIp?*w`|bL5qr,H)LFO6Q=qx~iH4DN; i"; /yuIsqbLLCh/!U#X[S~(5eZ41to5f%E@'ELIi$t^ Vc\LWP@J5p^rst0+('>Er0=^1{]M9!p?&:\z]|;&=NP3AhB!B_bi^]Pfkw User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.4.50 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:w8t4XjMjXunzvJOcIyhATOXHY+s= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:174543 Archived-At: "Stephen J. Turnbull" writes: > Nic Ferrier writes: > > > I am torn between a much more open and distributed Emacs (which I > > suspect rms won't like) > > What's not open or distributed about Emacs? Maintaining legal > paperwork is a cost and an inconvenience, but the GPL itself legally > guarantees openness and in practice Emacs development is highly > distributed. ELPA is only going to provide more cases where people > want to "sign papers", or to gather "papers" from their coauthors. I > can't see this as a problem -- Emacs will acquire more copyrights than > it would have otherwise. > > I suppose it's theoretically possible that the body of unassigned and > perhaps unassignable Emacs Lisp will grow faster than the body of > assigned Emacs Lisp, but I doubt it. Even if it does, most people do > obey the rules, and the body of free software will increase. > > > and having Emacs stay guaranteed free > > There are no guarantees. It is certainly possible that an SCO-like > attack could be made on Emacs, especially via submarine patent. The > FSF legal policy merely makes it less likely to succeed, and provides > the FSF the option of shifting costs onto contributors if it fails to > defend the copyrights they claimed to assign. The cost-shifting is not likely to ever trigger since it is rather explicitly only applicable for deliberate or at least conscious inclusion of material from uncleared origin. I think it's more a protection against blatant submarines. What the assignments do does not significantly protect against "an attack on Emacs". Rather they make sure that the FSF can aggressively pursue violations of the GPL on Emacs without having to fear muddy waters resulting in large legal costs and settlements. Now that's my personal take of the situation. I cannot vouch for Richard's though: after all, the main trigger for creating the GPL _was_ a cease-and-desist call concerning the redistribution of derivatives of Gosling's Emacs variant, causing a bunch of lost work. -- David Kastrup