Re: The copyright issue

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Uday S Reddy <u.s.reddy@cs.bham.ac.uk> writes:

> I am really glad to hear that corporations do that.  But it might
> actually be easier for corporations to sign over the copyright than it
> is for private groups.  Many people contribute over the years and they
> get dispersed.

That's why the FSF requires assignments upfront instead of hoping to get
them eventually.

> Even if one of them is unable or unwilling to assign copyright to FSF,
> Gnu has to stay away.  So, it seems that Gnu has needlessly isolated
> itself on an island from which it cannot escape.

Not "needlessly", obviously, and it is not the GNU project that has
written the copyright laws requiring this sort of carefulness.

> There is an ocean of free software outside Gnu, but Gnu can't touch
> it.  Isn't it absurd?

The GPL is "strong copyleft".  If you can't go after GPL violations
because of dubious standing, it is teethless.

That's why the GNU project won't (not "can't") touch software that could
take away the strong and certain defensibility of the GPL.

If you are not interested in that defensibility, projects like FreeBSD
exist.  The commercial success of the GPL universe, also with corporate
contributors, tells us that clearly there _is_ a place and desire for
strong copyleft.

So there is absolutely no point in continuing to pollute the Emacs
developer list with a discussion that was current a number of decades
ago, with nothing changed in the reasoning since then, and with history
showing that the decisions made were sound and led to an advance in the
availability of free software.

The discussion has been _over_ for dozens of years, the decisions have
been _made_ long ago and _vindicated_ by the resulting developments.

-- 
David Kastrup