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: Emacs contributions, C and Lisp Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:15:38 +0900 Message-ID: <87siq3ovxh.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> References: <52FCD2B4.5080006@yandex.ru> <52FD9F1D.50205@yandex.ru> <83mwhucg1h.fsf@gnu.org> <878ute589i.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <83d2iqc84m.fsf@gnu.org> <87wqgxkcr9.fsf@yandex.ru> <834n41db0d.fsf@gnu.org> <52FE2985.4070703@yandex.ru> <831tz5daes.fsf@gnu.org> <8738jlohd6.fsf@yandex.ru> <83txc1bl83.fsf@gnu.org> <5300189A.9090208@yandex.ru> <83wqgv9fbj.fsf@gnu.org> <20140216180712.236069f6@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <83sirj9cyp.fsf@gnu.org> <20140217203145.71a849f7@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <837g8t8ouc.fsf@gnu.org> <20140219080524.25689b6b@forcix.jorgenschaefer.de> <87fvnfqyfv.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1395976561 11342 80.91.229.3 (28 Mar 2014 03:16:01 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 03:16:01 +0000 (UTC) Cc: David Kastrup , rms@gnu.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Michal Nazarewicz Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Mar 28 04:16:09 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 1WTNH6-0002Cy-PB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 28 Mar 2014 04:16:08 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:56966 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WTNH6-0004IR-BB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 27 Mar 2014 23:16:08 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44804) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WTNGv-000410-O9 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 27 Mar 2014 23:16:05 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WTNGo-0002ty-Cc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 27 Mar 2014 23:15:57 -0400 Original-Received: from mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp ([130.158.97.224]:34533) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WTNGf-0002pf-RP; Thu, 27 Mar 2014 23:15:42 -0400 Original-Received: from uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp [130.158.99.156]) by mgmt2.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix) with ESMTP id D77B0970A3D; Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:15:38 +0900 (JST) Original-Received: by uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp (Postfix, from userid 1000) id C54911A28DC; Fri, 28 Mar 2014 12:15:38 +0900 (JST) In-Reply-To: X-Mailer: VM undefined under 21.5 (beta34) "kale" 2a0f42961ed4 XEmacs Lucid (x86_64-unknown-linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6.x X-Received-From: 130.158.97.224 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:171059 Archived-At: Aside to Richard: the last 3 paragraphs may be of use to you/the FSF/the movement. Michal Nazarewicz writes: > There are people who would argue that this kind of paperwork is in fact > unneeded. I admit it has merit, and I understand why lawyers want it, > but it's not at all clear that it is worth creating this burden. Doesn't matter, because it is clear to RMS as well as the formal Emacs maintainers. (I suspect clarity on this matter is a prerequisite for Emacs maintainership, but either way, there's an actual consensus among Those Who Decide -- only if the lawyers change their minds would this change, but our arguments won't affect the lawyers' advice.) Also, you should note that you're bucking the tide here. I believe that Linus has conceded that assignments can be helpful, and many projects such as Python require a contributor agreement, which is just as much paperwork, even if it doesn't require giving up copyright. The number of successful projects that require paperwork in some form is growing. > SFC for example runs its GPL Compliance Project for Linux > Developers representing just a small fraction of Linux copyright > holders. Good for them! Here's hoping the fraction gets larger! > Even GNU does not require copyright assignment to all its projects. GNU includes a lot of things that are not GNU products. RMS's penchant for abbreviation notwithstanding, the proper name of most GNU distributions is "GNU/BSD/TeX/X11/Linux/Perl/..., oh screw it, My Name Is Legion". Because all GNU distributions include such "borrowed" components (see the GNU Manifesto), requiring assignments is difficult in practice, except on a project by project basis. > I may be wrong in my assessment, I'm not a lawyer after all, but I > bet *majority* of developers, myself included, see CA as an > unneeded burden. So what? The GNU Emacs project sees it as necessary to protect their distribution of Emacs. As David points out that doesn't stop you from distributing Emacs including your code, or just your code, yourself. > And individuals are not even the hardest part. I became a > maintainer of auto-dim-other-buffers.el[1]. I would love to have > it in GNU ELPA, but frankly, I won't even bother asking other > contributors of to the project to sign a CA Why not? All they can do is say "No". You don't have to push it hard, but asking is easy. I think that it should be easier to make the assignment than it currently is, but that's another matter. > And we did not even start with the fact that some people oppose CAs > as a matter of principle. So what? Whenever my principles come into conflict with yours, I have to act in accordance with my own principles, no? Of course I should respect you for acting in accordance with yours. If we can't cooperate for that reason it's a shame, but life is like that. The alternative is the Crusades (or jihad, if you prefer). N.B. It's hard for me to understand the "in principle" part. For all practical purposes your code remains your code; you are free to do anything with it that you were free to do before. The ownership transfer is *necessary* to protect *your* right to do anything you like with that code. Under U.S. law, at least, it is not possible to license somebody else to administer your copyright unless that license is exclusive, which means you can't do anything else with the code for the term of that license. What the FSF copyright assignment does is to assume ownership, then grant you a *nonexclusive* license to do *anything* you want with your code, including relicensing it as a proprietary product. Ie, just as the GPL is legal judo turning copyright *itself* on its head, the FSF copyright assignment is legal judo turning copyright *ownership* on its head. I can understand not assigning code that doesn't depend on copyleft code, or where you believe you might be able to get an appropriate license from the owner of the copyleft code. But not assigning code that is derivative of Emacs ... where's the principle in that? "What's mine is mine, and I'm not giving it up"? Unless you are very rich, rich enough to live off interest, you have to give something up to live: your work, or the products of that work. P.S. to Richard: I don't recall seeing this argument expressed before. Maybe it's new? Either way, I hereby dedicate the previous three paragraphs of this message, beginning with "N.B.", to the public domain -- if it's useful to you, feel free. If your lawyers want paperwork, let me know. Or you can do a clean-room reimplementation. :-)