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: Some hard numbers on licenses used by elisp packages Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:06:13 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87shi4z7ps.fsf@bernoul.li> <87zic9zuof.fsf@bernoul.li> <877ezaajme.fsf@bernoul.li> <87shhw2xuv.fsf@bernoul.li> <87379gbyjp.fsf@bernoul.li> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1501355311 1682 195.159.176.226 (29 Jul 2017 19:08:31 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2017 19:08:31 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Jonas Bernoulli Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jul 29 21:08:28 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 1dbX69-00007i-3o for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 21:08:25 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53164 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dbX6F-0006qo-0Q for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:08:31 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:33620) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dbX49-0006GS-Ca for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:06:22 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dbX47-0002fE-Tq for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:06:21 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:39122) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dbX42-0002Xa-C2; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:06:14 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1dbX41-0000gw-Tv; Sat, 29 Jul 2017 15:06:13 -0400 In-reply-to: <87379gbyjp.fsf@bernoul.li> (message from Jonas Bernoulli on Fri, 28 Jul 2017 13:17:46 +0200) 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:217141 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. ]]] > - failure: The licensing terms are specified somehow. But my tools > cannot detect that. In some cases that is a failure of my tools, > in other cases it is a failure to specify the terms in a way that > could possibly be detected automatically. It is good that many of the unknowns are "failures", because the "failure" is actually is a superficial problem and we can fix it on our own. If, on careful study, we can see that the authorss of package P tried to say it was under license L, we can edit the text of the package so make that same statement in the recommended and clear way. We don't need to ask specially for permission to do this, because this change follows the authors' stated licensing decision. It presents their decision in a more visible way. > - none: Looking at the package for half a minute did not reveal any > license of permission statement. These cases are the hard problems. > * I have contacted nearly all of the authors of packages that appear to > not specify a license. These packages are being identified below by > the pseudo license "pending". Thank you. That's exactly what needs to be done. > Responses - all positive - have started to dribble in. This is good news. When the authors say they want to add a license, anyone can do the editing to add it. That's lawful because it is carrying out the authors' wishes. However, we cannot take for granted that all will say yes or that we will succeed in reaching them all. -- 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.