From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Please explain the FSF copyright assignment thing Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:36:13 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1500082642 15763 195.159.176.226 (15 Jul 2017 01:37:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 01:37:22 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rcopley@gmail.com, yuri.v.khan@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Filipe Silva Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 15 03:37:18 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC1F-0003uj-Ni for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 03:37:17 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40413 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC1L-0003ws-BB for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:37:23 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:45012) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC0L-0003vx-K3 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:36:22 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC0K-00053g-Qu for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:36:21 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:51839) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC0D-0004wc-Pd; Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:36:13 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1dWC0D-00049i-9M; Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:36:13 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Filipe Silva on Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:56:47 -0300) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:216668 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > I mean the fact that a copyright owner can go rogue and change a license > alone without asking if the other copyright owners would agree and at the > same time all the copyright owners must act in cooperation in order to > enforce a license. This is is a sad state of affairs. That sort of thing does happen, and it has caused problems. Fortunately the versions already released under a free license remain available under that free license regardless of what happens. The copyright assignment allows us to switch to a different free software license when we want to. But most importantly it gives us the power to go to court to enforce the GPL _as the copyright holder_.n -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.