Re: Loading a package applies automatically to future sessions?

[Stephen Berman]

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 16:44:04 -0500 George Plymale II <address@hidden> wrote:

>>    [...] Thus, we grant back to contributors a license to use
>>    their work as they see fit. This means they are free to modify, share,
>>    and sublicense their own work under terms of their choice. This enables
>>    contributors to redistribute their work under another free software
>>    license. While this technically also permits distributing their work
>>    under a proprietary license, we hope they won't.
>    
> That sounds interesting, but I would like to know more of the specifics
> about that. Is there a place where I can find very detailed information
> about this specific "license" which is "granted back to contributors?"

I don't know of an online resource with such details, but maybe it's
somewhere in the FSF website.  There is a statement to that effect in
the assignment agreement itself, at least in the paper version I
received when I made my assignment many years ago:

   FSF agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant,
   non-exclusive, royalty-free and non-cancellable rights to use the Works
   (i.e., Developer's changes and/or enhancements, not the Program that
   they enhance), as Developer sees fit [...]

>> Are you sure you understand the FSF policy?
>
> I'm not sure what you're implying.

Your wording ("it's not right to force someone to give you the rights to
their code while in the same breath talking about freedom", "This kind
of stuff doesn't encourage any openness or 'hacker culture.'") suggests
a different understanding of the FSF policy than what the FSF itself
expounds, as exemplified by the passage I quoted above.

Steve Berman