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: In support of Jonas Bernoulli's Magit Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:26:42 -0400 Message-ID: References: <8737aac0rb.fsf@wanadoo.es> <87lgo1fv0c.fsf@russet.org.uk> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1499679184 14771 195.159.176.226 (10 Jul 2017 09:33:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2017 09:33:04 +0000 (UTC) Cc: ofv@wanadoo.es, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jul 10 11:33:00 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 1dUV3o-0003Ic-Bx for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 11:32:56 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:39580 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dUV3s-0003cp-BW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:33:00 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40115) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dUUyg-0008N3-PT for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:27:39 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dUUyf-0002WE-SX for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:27:38 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:38309) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dUUxm-0001z0-WB; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:26:43 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1dUUxm-0003Bl-Cz; Mon, 10 Jul 2017 05:26:42 -0400 In-reply-to: <87lgo1fv0c.fsf@russet.org.uk> (phillip.lord@russet.org.uk) 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:216403 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. ]]] > Almost everybody I asked about copyright assignment said yes. Those who > did not just did not reply and have disappeared from the web. It is much better to ask people for papers when they make their contributions. At that time, it is not hard to find them, and there is a natural way to persuade them. When people develop a package and only much later think about getting legal papers for it, the job becomes a more difficult, and that is what we see in the case of Magit. > 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, The way to avoid this is for the developers of dash.el to ask new contributors "please sign papers", as we do. Why is that not happening? > The FSF has a donations drive every year. Can you not spend some of that > on making the process easier? We do. That is one of the things that some of our staff work on. Alas, there are many other tasks waiting for them. The best solution for this hassle is to avoid it -- by collecting legal papers as the package is developed. > Even a public website showing people with > assignment (who are willing to be public) would help. That sounds like something feasible to do. I think we could easily find 100 Emacs developers who would be happy to agree to this. Can you make the idea more precise? What should this look like? Also, how would it help? -- 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.