Re: Why are so many great packages not trying to get included in GNU Emacs? WAS: Re: Making Emacs more friendly to newcomers

[Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>]

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Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> - An unwillingness to assign copyright to the FSF, seemingly often more due to
>   inertia than any principled opposition.

Here's a first proposal to improve the situation: including the "Why
Assign?" text in the manual.  Yes, the manual will be longer, but if
even one more person will read and understand the reasons behind the
FSF's insistence on assignments, I think it will be worth it.  Please
see the attached.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

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diff --git a/doc/emacs/trouble.texi b/doc/emacs/trouble.texi
index 33f67f2b44..04bb1bb021 100644
--- a/doc/emacs/trouble.texi
+++ b/doc/emacs/trouble.texi
@@ -1443,8 +1443,32 @@ Copyright Assignment
 
 Generally speaking, for non-trivial contributions to GNU Emacs and
 packages stored in GNU ELPA, we require that the copyright be assigned
-to the FSF@.  For the reasons behind this, see
-@url{https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html}.
+to the FSF@.  Professor Eben Moglen, Columbia University Law School,
+has explained the reasons why:
+
+@quotation
+Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free
+software programs have historically been first published, there are
+very substantial procedural advantages to registration of
+copyright.  And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by
+the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for
+distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment
+of the copyright can enforce the license.  If there are multiple
+authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on
+having the cooperation of all authors.
+
+In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the
+recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to
+be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each
+author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright
+assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire
+ownership claims by the programmer's employer.  That way we can be sure
+that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can
+most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can
+completely rely.
+
+From: @url{https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html}
+@end quotation
 
 Copyright assignment is a simple process.  Residents of some countries
 can do it entirely electronically.  We can help you get started,