Re: Copyright/Distribution questions (Emacs/Orgmode)

[Carsten Dominik <carsten.dominik@gmail.com>]

On 12.3.2013, at 03:33, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen@xemacs.org> wrote:
> 
> 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.

It is easy to see and prove that the intent from day on was to become
part of Emacs.  It is clear that there is no ignorance in play.  If
anything, the conflict might have been caused in part by the fact that
the delay to get this code into Emacs was long.

Jambunathan has made it entirely explicit that the aim of his change
of heart in this question is this (I quote from a message to
emacs-orgmode@gnu.org): "I am stating my purpose in no uncertain
terms - yes it is to delay the release or cause confusion."

While I am sympathetic to the *feel* that code I write should only
go where I want it, I don't think it provides a proper basis for
working in a free software environment in the GPL sense.  Code
committed to repositories under GPL, and in this case also with
and FSF copyright assignment in place invites modification and
contributors by other authors (as has been the case for at least
one of the files in question).  These contributions are made
under the correct assumption that the code will remain to be
free and that the intent to make it part of Org-mode and/or Emacs
is irreversible.

- Carsten