Re: Copyright/Distribution questions (Emacs/Orgmode)

[William Gardella]

"Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden> writes:

> Subhan Tindall writes:
>
>  > Example.
>  > I sign a copyright assignment form in order to work on project X. I
>  > then write code to enhance or fix errors in X.
>  > A reasonable person would most likely determine that my intent was add
>  > this code to project X, therefore
>  > my copyright was transferred upon it's creation as part of the
>  > contract I signed.
>
> Not at all.  Your intent (for values of "you" != you, I expect) might
> very well be a fork, not a contribution.  I do that all the time,
> creating works intended only for my private use, or that I want to
> maintain control of until I'm satisfied with them.  "Upon creation" is
> not tenable.

It's also not the situation at hand here.  Jambunathan did not just
privately create some files to be used "with Emacs," but committed them
to the Org repos.  The main part of org consists of files to which
copyright is already assigned to the FSF.

> Org is made of many files. Most of them are also distributed as part of
> GNU Emacs. These files are called the Org core, and they are all
> copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, Inc. If you consider
> contributing to these files, your first need to grant the right to
> include your works in GNU Emacs to the FSF. For this you need to
> complete this form, send it to address@hidden, and tell the Org-mode
> maintainer when this process is complete. Some people consider this a
> hassle. I don't want to discuss this in detail here - there are some
> good reasons for getting the copyright registered, an example is
> discussed in this FLOSS weekly podcast. Furthermore, by playing
> according to the Emacs rules, we gain the fantastic advantage that every
> version of Emacs ships with Org-mode already fully built in. So please
> consider doing this - it makes our work as maintainers so much easier,
> because we can then take your patches without any additional work.

> If you want to learn more about why copyright assignments are collected,
> read this: Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from contributors?
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contribute.html

The `ox-html' library complained about is the "new" version of the "old"
HTML exporter, and as such is a revision of an already properly assigned
"Org core" file.  An important one, at that, until everyone is ready to
use the new exporters in Org 8.0.  What's more, Jambunathan hacked on
this file without complaining about the copyright assignment, seemingly
until about 10 March.  It's an extant Org core file, already in current
Emacs releases under another name.

-- 
Regards,
WGG