Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[James Lu]

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Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs includes
a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)

In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy,
where a variant of GNU software was called something else and disassociated
from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
"require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
by works containing it"

"You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive
it, in any medium, **provided that you conspicuously and appropriately
publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice**; keep intact all
notices stating that this License and any non-permissive term"

"The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is released under
this License and any conditions added under section 7."

Most users do not go into the settings of an application to read licenses.
I would not consider that sort of attribution "prominent" and "conspicuous"
as the GPL requires.

This also nudges users of alternate distributions to read about free
software, instead of using it oblivious. Just having more people consider
the idea of free software is good for our movement.

If the GPL is not able to require a "This program is free software..."
style notice, a "(C) Free Software Foundation 2021, under the GNU GPLv3
<link to the GPL>" should be manageable.

Furthermore, we should require preservation of the "author attribution" of
"About GNU" in the menu.

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Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2021 01:04:31 -0500
> Cc: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> 
> In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy, where a variant of GNU software
> was called something else and disassociated from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of
> GPLv3 to require "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author attributions in that
> material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed by works containing it"

Thanks for letting us know, but please take this discussion elsewhere,
either emacs-tangents@gnu.org or even gnu-misc-discuss.  This issue is
unrelated to the Emacs development, and will unnecessarily increase
the noise level on this list, which is dedicated to development of the
GNU Emacs project.

I urge anyone who wants to respond to please do it elsewhere.

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jean Louis]

* James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> [2021-02-13 08:13]:
> Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
> screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs includes
> a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)
> 
> In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy,
> where a variant of GNU software was called something else and disassociated
> from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
> "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
> attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
> by works containing it"

That is right. Is the bug reported to Spacemacs? What is the reaction?

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 13:48:05 +0300
> From: Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support>
> Cc: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> * James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> [2021-02-13 08:13]:
> > Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
> > screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs includes
> > a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)
> > 
> > In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy,
> > where a variant of GNU software was called something else and disassociated
> > from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
> > "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
> > attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
> > by works containing it"
> 
> That is right. Is the bug reported to Spacemacs? What is the reaction?

PLEASE take this discussion to emacs-tangents.

I've redirected the response there.

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 11.02.2021 08:04, James Lu wrote:
> "You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you 
> receive it, in any medium, **provided that you conspicuously and 
> appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice**; 
> keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive 
> term"

Spacemacs and similar "distributions" actually don't redistribute Emacs 
itself. They're just collections of extensions together with 
instructions for installing them.

So I don't think this condition can apply, legally speaking.

(IANAL, though.)

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jean Louis]

With copy to help-gnu-emacs:

* Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru> [2021-02-13 15:05]:
> On 11.02.2021 08:04, James Lu wrote:
> > "You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you
> > receive it, in any medium, **provided that you conspicuously and
> > appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice**;
> > keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive
> > term"
> 
> Spacemacs and similar "distributions" actually don't redistribute Emacs
> itself. They're just collections of extensions together with instructions
> for installing them.
> 
> So I don't think this condition can apply, legally speaking.

Unrelated to the subject, software may be distributed in parts from
different places and be considered part of the whole.

Reference:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AggregateContainers

,----
| When it comes to determining whether two pieces of software form a
| single work, does the fact that the code is in one or more containers
| have any effect? (#AggregateContainers)
| 
|     No, the analysis of whether they are a single work or an aggregate
|     is unchanged by the involvement of containers.
`----

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

,----
| What is the difference between an “aggregate” and other kinds of “modified versions”? (#MereAggregation)
| 
|     An “aggregate” consists of a number of separate programs,
|     distributed together on the same CD-ROM or other media. The GPL
|     permits you to create and distribute an aggregate, even when the
|     licenses of the other software are nonfree or
|     GPL-incompatible. The only condition is that you cannot release
|     the aggregate under a license that prohibits users from exercising
|     rights that each program's individual license would grant them.
| 
|     Where's the line between two separate programs, and one program
|     with two parts? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges
|     will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on
|     the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls
|     within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the
|     communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).
| 
|     If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are
|     definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run
|     linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely
|     means combining them into one program.
| 
|     By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are
|     communication mechanisms normally used between two separate
|     programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules
|     normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the
|     communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal
|     data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two
|     parts as combined into a larger program.
`----

Spacemacs promotes itself as distribution of Emacs, users download the
essential configurations and functions of Spacesmacs depend on main
Emacs which in the end turns as new version of the software, which is
also perceived that way, both depend on each other.

Thus Spacemacs shall by all means comply to the GPL.

Major question is, was that reported as bug to Spacemacs?

Jean

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> Date: Sat, 13 Feb 2021 14:04:29 +0200
> Cc: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
> 
> On 11.02.2021 08:04, James Lu wrote:
> > "You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you 
> > receive it, in any medium, **provided that you conspicuously and 
> > appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice**; 
> > keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive 
> > term"
> 
> Spacemacs and similar "distributions" actually don't redistribute Emacs 
> itself. They're just collections of extensions together with 
> instructions for installing them.
> 
> So I don't think this condition can apply, legally speaking.
> 
> (IANAL, though.)

Please continue this discussion on emacs-tangents (replies redirected
there).

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Daniele Nicolodi]

On 11/02/2021 07:04, James Lu wrote:
> In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux
> controversy, where a variant of GNU software was called something else
> and disassociated from free software,
To what do you refer exactly here? I don't recall anything like this
ever happening, but your terse description may not help my memory.

Thank you.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > > In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux
  > > controversy, where a variant of GNU software was called something else
  > > and disassociated from free software,
  > To what do you refer exactly here? I don't recall anything like this
  > ever happening, but your terse description may not help my memory.

I think Lu was referring to the widespread misnomer of "Linux system"
when referring to a variant of the GNU system which has Linux as the
kernel.  See https://gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html and
https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[James Lu]

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I personally became a free software activist through one of these "This
program is free software, see gnu.org..." notices, so I think it's very
important we preserve these: to spread the good word of free software,
which is what Emacs was made to do.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2021, 12:19 AM Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> wrote:

> [[[ 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. ]]]
>
>   > > In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux
>   > > controversy, where a variant of GNU software was called something
> else
>   > > and disassociated from free software,
>   > To what do you refer exactly here? I don't recall anything like this
>   > ever happening, but your terse description may not help my memory.
>
> I think Lu was referring to the widespread misnomer of "Linux system"
> when referring to a variant of the GNU system which has Linux as the
> kernel.  See https://gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html and
> https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.
>
>
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
> Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
> Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
> Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)
>
>
>
>

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Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jose E. Marchesi]

> I personally became a free software activist through one of these "This
> program is free software, see gnu.org..." notices, so I think it's very
> important we preserve these: to spread the good word of free software,
> which is what Emacs was made to do.

FWIW I also learned about free software back in the nineties after
reading "Debian GNU/Linux" in the motd in a Debian Hamm and thinking
"what the hell is this GNU thing".

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Daniele Nicolodi]

On 16/02/2021 06:19, Richard Stallman wrote:
> [[[ 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. ]]]
> 
>   > > In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux
>   > > controversy, where a variant of GNU software was called something else
>   > > and disassociated from free software,
>   > To what do you refer exactly here? I don't recall anything like this
>   > ever happening, but your terse description may not help my memory.
> 
> I think Lu was referring to the widespread misnomer of "Linux system"
> when referring to a variant of the GNU system which has Linux as the
> kernel.  See https://gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html and
> https://gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.

I am well aware of this, but it is a very long stretch to describe this
as Lu did, especially the "disassociated from free software" part. I am
sure that in your long years of activism you very well understood that
one important thing in perusing a cause is to frame it precisely and
correctly.

Cheers,
Dan

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
  > "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
  > attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
  > by works containing it"

We cannot alter GPLv3.  We could only make a new version, and the amount of
hassle that would involve is not worth considering for this.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jean Louis]

* Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> [2021-02-14 09:38]:
> [[[ 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. ]]]
> 
>   > from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
>   > "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
>   > attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
>   > by works containing it"
> 
> We cannot alter GPLv3.  We could only make a new version, and the amount of
> hassle that would involve is not worth considering for this.
> 
> Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Did person request altering of a license or excercising of section
7.4.?

I think person requested to excercise the section, not to alter the
license, due to violation of GPL.

I think it is quite valid request as Spacemacs is very dependent of
Emacs and if it is hides legal notices and references to the license
than Emacs protection has to kick in. But I have not verified if it
really does so, I will do soon.

Jean

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

  > Did person request altering of a license or excercising of section
  > 7.4.?

I think I misread it before.  Sorry.

Section 7.4 says it is possible to add to the license of a program
a clause saying to preserve a specific notice.  We could do that,
but I am not sure it is wise.

Let's ask the Spacemacs developers to cooperate.



-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jean Louis]

* Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> [2021-02-15 07:46]:
> [[[ 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. ]]]
> 
>   > Did person request altering of a license or excercising of section
>   > 7.4.?
> 
> I think I misread it before.  Sorry.
> 
> Section 7.4 says it is possible to add to the license of a program
> a clause saying to preserve a specific notice.  We could do that,
> but I am not sure it is wise.
> 
> Let's ask the Spacemacs developers to cooperate.

In this regard I have filed the bug at Github:
https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/issues/14444

with the comment below:

 gnusupport commented Mar 1, 2021

After reading the GPL, and reviewing Spacemacs, I am of the opinion that Spacemacs is not merely an aggregate, it is one full work that includes various other parts. It does not matter if parts come from various places, the whole package is there.

Review:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AggregateContainers

I am proposing that authors review the section 5. about Conveying Modified Source Versions, and to see if there is need to comply to it. As it is actually a distribution of Emacs in modified form IMHO. I have not found copy of license inside. I found the reference, but the reference like GPLv3 is not enough to comply to licensing.

Please review:

    a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
    it, and giving a relevant date.

    b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is
    released under this License and any conditions added under section
    7.  This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to
    "keep intact all notices".

    c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
    License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.  This
    License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7
    additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts,
    regardless of how they are packaged.  This License gives no
    permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not
    invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

    d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display
    Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive
    interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your
    work need not make them do so.

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Jean Louis]

* James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> [2021-02-13 00:12]:
> Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
> screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs includes
> a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)
> 
> In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy,
> where a variant of GNU software was called something else and disassociated
> from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
> "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
> attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
> by works containing it"

Maintainer and author of Spacemacs has understood your proposal and
have changed all files to include GPL3 as how it is specified in the
license, included LICENSE file in the distribution and is now changing
the splash screen to include copying conditions.

See: 
https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/pull/14552

 syl20bnr commented 3 hours ago

Should fix #14444

    Added the LICENSE file.
    Added GPLv3 terms explicitly to each elisp file
    Updated the years to 2021
    Cherry on the cake, added the GPLv3 logo to the README file:

And wishes to add button on the main screen pointing to copying
conditions.

I wish best for increasing Emacs user number through Spacemacs and We
hope for creation of more free software and better understanding with
help of Spacemacs developers!

Jean

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ 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. ]]]

Thanks for doing this.  We got the best result in a friendly way.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[James Lu]

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I am not sure this is best.

I would prefer "Freedom-respecting software" somewhere on the
home buffer, to attract people to the cause of free software.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 3:03 AM Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> wrote:

> * James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> [2021-02-13 00:12]:
> > Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
> > screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs
> includes
> > a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)
> >
> > In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux
> controversy,
> > where a variant of GNU software was called something else and
> disassociated
> > from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
> > "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
> > attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices
> displayed
> > by works containing it"
>
> Maintainer and author of Spacemacs has understood your proposal and
> have changed all files to include GPL3 as how it is specified in the
> license, included LICENSE file in the distribution and is now changing
> the splash screen to include copying conditions.
>
> See:
> https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/pull/14552
>
>  syl20bnr commented 3 hours ago
>
> Should fix #14444
>
>     Added the LICENSE file.
>     Added GPLv3 terms explicitly to each elisp file
>     Updated the years to 2021
>     Cherry on the cake, added the GPLv3 logo to the README file:
>
> And wishes to add button on the main screen pointing to copying
> conditions.
>
> I wish best for increasing Emacs user number through Spacemacs and We
> hope for creation of more free software and better understanding with
> help of Spacemacs developers!
>
> Jean
>
>

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Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[Pankaj Jangid]

James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> writes:

> I am not sure this is best.
>
> I would prefer "Freedom-respecting software" somewhere on the
> home buffer, to attract people to the cause of free software.

I see that the maintainer (of Spacemacs) is taking this positively. Last
few comments suggest that they might include the text or something
similar.

-- 
Regards,
Pankaj Jangid