From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Copyright/Distribution questions (Emacs/Orgmode) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:33:11 +0900 Message-ID: <87mwu9fiu0.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <87ober717z.fsf@gmail.com> <87mwu9iwcp.fsf@gmail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1363055600 1136 80.91.229.3 (12 Mar 2013 02:33:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2013 02:33:20 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Jambunathan K , Richard Stallman , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Subhan Tindall Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 12 03:33:44 2013 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 1UFF28-00033g-14 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 03:33:44 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:35477 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UFF1l-0005a5-Kp for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:33:21 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:37285) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UFF1h-0005Zv-86 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:33:19 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UFF1e-0006WO-Jz for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:33:17 -0400 Original-Received: from mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.223]:41979) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1UFF1e-0006W5-3U; Mon, 11 Mar 2013 22:33:14 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt1.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90C353FA08C5; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:33:11 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 5450B1A3D97; Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:33:11 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta32) "habanero" b0d40183ac79 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.223 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:157756 Archived-At: Subhan Tindall writes: > Ah, I may see your error here Jambunathan. Copyright becomes attached > to a work the moment in time it is created (at least in the US), In any jurisdiction implementing the Berne Convention. > and publication has no bearing on it's existence or assignment. > The assignment of rights for "changes and enhancements to the > program " covers the rights to created > material from *the moment the code is written*, No, that's false. Copyright law knows nothing of whether the material was written "to be part of", or even contains parts of, Emacs[1], and therefore a generic assignment cannot cover code until it is contributed *to* Emacs, explicitly by the author inserting a "part of Emacs" statement, explicitly by substituting the FSF for himself in the copyright notice, or (perhaps, I'm not sure what would happen if you maintained your own copyright notice in this case) implicitly by committing it personally to a repository of code (not necessarily a VCS, but any archive) that is considered "part of Emacs." (You are correct in that distribution of the code or presence in "the official" Emacs repo are not necessary, of course.) For example, the FSF has no claim on my ~/.xemacs/init.el, though it contains generic enhancements to XEmacs (the code base for which my assignment was explicitly designated) that I will probably contribute in the future. On the contrary, I could write an accounting program in 6502 assembler, send appropriate documentation to the FSF copyright clerk indicating that I consider it to be part of (my version of ;-) XEmacs, and my assignment for that program would take effect. I don't claim that either of these extreme examples is at all similar to the cases of ox-html and ox-odt. > A similar situation is a work made for hire. Yes, it is similar to a work made for hire in that the scope of the work for hire is specified, either in a standalone contract, or by order of your employer. Jambunathan is claiming that he has not yet designated this work as within the scope of Emacs, but he may be ignorant of the legal implications of committing code to certain repositories. On the other hand, a court might construe his ignorance to mean that no intent to contribute was present. I think that's strained; at the present time org-mode code is "tracked" to be included in Emacs and I suppose he knew that when he committed. But AFAIK -- IANAL/TINLA -- a court *might* be sympathetic to him. > For example, I work on many programs for my employer. As part of > my contract, all copyright for that work is ceded to my employer. Correct in the U.S., I believe, but that is an employment contract, and a quite different matter, because it covers *your professional activities* and the product *of those activities* (in some cases, 24 hours a day whether on premises or not). An assignment of Emacs code, extant and to be written, to the FSF is *not* an employment contract. It is merely a convenient way to perform an indefinite number of assignments with one signature (at least, that's what my lawyer told me). Footnotes: [1] Of course the "parts of Emacs" are presumably copyright FSF, *but the changes and enhancements are not* (yet).