Re: Copyright/Distribution questions (Emacs/Orgmode)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Karl Fogel writes:

 > As a purely legal question: I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal
 > advice, but I don't believe you can retroactively withdraw your
 > copyright assignment

Be careful.  One clearly can't "withdraw the assignment" on files that
Emacs has received, because the FSF now owns the copyright.  You can
terminate assign.future, and that would affect any files in the
pipeline.  IANAL, but this is based on real legal advice from a real
lawyer (I decided not to do it for the reasons you give).

Again, IANAL, but I suppose that the "date of receipt" and the
definition of "Emacs receiving" almost certainly[sic] don't correspond
to our intuitive concepts.  I even wonder if experienced lawyers would
necessarily agree on those terms.