Re: Drop the Copyright Assignment requirement for Emacs

[Marcin Borkowski <mbork@mbork.pl>]

On 2020-05-09, at 11:48, João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com> wrote:

> Finally, above practical aspects, assigning copyright is declaring
> support for an idea larger than the FSF itself.  It's a political
> declaration.

Could someone officially confirm or deny the above paragraph?

If that is indeed so, I might consider withdrawing my assignment.  While
I do agree with FSF goals in some part, I never treated the copyright
assignment as a "political declaration", and if this is indeed the case,
I feel quite cheated.  When I assigned the copyright, nobody told me
anything about any "political declaration" stuff.  I was a bit hesitant
to sign the agreement, precisely because I was afraid it might be
understood as a "political declaration", and finally deciding that it is
more of a legal technicality and yet another rms'/FSF's weirdness.

To be clear: I am quite supportive of the idea of free software, and
I have quite a few reasons to agree with and even admire rms (and some
other reasons to firmly refute some of his views, which I consider
morally wrong, even evil maybe, and very harmful), but I e.g. do not
consider non-free software to be morally wrong.  I also agree with many
critical views on big corporations stealing our privacy, and imposing
new meanings on some words (the word "Orwellian" comes to mind).
I personally try to avoid giving away too much of my privacy - I use
Privavy Badger, I seldom google but use DuckDuckGo on a daily basis,
I almost never pay with a debit card (I made an exception because of the
covid-19 lunacy we have now) and I do not even have a credit card, but
I am not paranoid about it, and I do own an Android phone, an Amazon
Kindle and sometimes I use MS Windows (though I consider it clunky).
Also, I very much agree with rms' criticism for using some words (like
"intellectual property" or "piracy"), but consider his insistence on
using expressions like "Kindle Swindle" childish and even slightly
pathetic.

(Just a short summary of my views on free software, FSF and rms.)

So, if someone treats my signature of the copyright assignment as
a "political declaration" of support to FSF's or rms' views, I would
like to make it absolutely clear that this is not the case.

TIA,

--
Marcin Borkowski
http://mbork.pl