There are a whole bunch of people who claim copyright on those files; their names are listed in the files' headers. I'll note that when I requested copyright assignment, I alerted the clerk that I was using these libraries. The plugin doesn't work without them.

I could probably externalize those files into an "npm" package and instruct users to install a separate executable to run the JavaScript portion of the plugin. But I'd much rather just include them in the package, because then it "works out-of-the-box".

As for ert-async, what would be our course of action if he does not agree? Will we add a copyright exception, or will I not be able to include the file in the repo?

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:51 AM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
> On the "Copyright (C) 2014 Johan Andersson", are you suggesting I change
> the copyright notice in ert-async.el myself, or that I should contact the
> author and tell him to change it?

Asking him is the right way.  The question to ask is whether he wants to
contribute this code to Emacs and/or GNU ELPA: if he does, then that
means his copyright assignment does cover this file and so that means
that the "Copyright (C) 2014 Johan Andersson" should be changed to
"Copyright (C) 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc".

Of course, you want to keep his name as an "Author:" and/or "Maintainer:".

> context-coloring/languages/javascript/libraries/ also includes 3 JavaScript
> libraries with their own copyright notices.  These appear to be licensed
> under the FreeBSD license.  Should they be handled specially?

The problem is not just the license but the copyright.  Who owns the
copyright to those files?


        Stefan