Re: In support of Jonas Bernoulli's Magit

[phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord)]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> [[[ 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'm afraid that you guys are missing the point. This has no relation
>   > with the maintainer of Magit, but with the fact that Magit cannot be
>   > distributed with Emacs.
>
> You've hit the nail on the head.  I am not saying anything either good
> or bad about Magit as such, because that's not the issue here.
>
> We have a problem in Emacs: it doesn't contain a good interface to
> git.  People often recommend something that is not in Emacs.  That's
> not a good situation.  I want to fix it.
>
> In principle, we could fix it with Magit.  I would be very glad if we
> did.  That would require tracking down lots of people and convincing
> them to sign the legal papers, and maybe replacing some pieces of code
> whose authors didn't sign.
>
> A year ago, more or less, I asked people if we could do this and I was
> told it was impossible.


It is not impossible, just difficult and time-consuming. I would relate
my experiences with getting copyright assignment for dash (33
contributors vs 200, no dependencies vs 4 dependencies).

Almost everybody I asked about copyright assignment said yes. Those who
did not just did not reply and have disappeared from the web. I
contacted everybody through their emails in git. I had to write out one
function, of about 14 lines.

The problem is that the process is currently blind. I email all the
developers, but I can't tell who already has assignment. Those who do
not, I email information to, but then cannot tell who has sent the
request forms out. Then I email again, to see whether they have
assignment forms, because I get no notification when the process has
completed. Copyright assignment is, per se, a big slow down. But, with
the FSF process, it's even harder. I know that some people can see the
assignments, but AFAICT, there is not notification of when this changes.

Installing some kind of ticket system, and a method for letting people
declare whether they have assignment already would be an enormous help.

As it stood, I think, dash.el took 4 months, because of the necessity
for the to-ing and fro-ing. dash.el in ELPA is now several versions
behind, because it's has some new contributors since, and I haven't been
able to get the energy up to start the process again. We also now have
seq.el, most of whose functionality is covered by dash; an unfortunate
and unnecessary duplication.

The FSF has a donations drive every year. Can you not spend some of that
on making the process easier? Even a public website showing people with
assignment (who are willing to be public) would help. And, another
copyright assignment clerk who can help with the process of emailing
everyone in a project like magit.

After that, getting magit into Emacs or ELPA might be less impossible
after all.

Phil