Re: [XBoard-devel] XBoard 4.9.0 release

[H.G. Muller]

Op 5/8/2016 om 10:14 PM schreef Arun Persaud:
> What's the status of the copyright papers for those files? Did someone
> else produce them? If so, we need to get the paperwork done before we
> add them to a release or to git.
Well, for the Shogi and Xiangqi themes we already distribute with XBoard 
now,
and which already are in git, this could hardly be a problem. I just 
copied them
from one git branch to another. The xb_xiangqi package doesn't contain 
anything new.
The xb_shogi package contains the pieces we currently distribute with 
XBoard as
well as the pieces we distributed before, as well as the 'Mnemonic' 
piece set
I just created myself. It also contains Chu and Tori-shogi kanji pieces 
created
by Kieth White, and donated by him to the XBoard project verbally. I don't
have his e-mail address, so I am not sure I will be able to reach him.

For the normal Chess themes we won't in general be able to acquire 
copyright;
these are SVG files belonging to other projects, such as SCID, Lucas 
Chess of Jin,
who most certainly will require GNU to transfer all XBoard copyrights to 
them
rather than doing the reverse.

I also don't see why GNU should own these copyrights: the themes are not
software, but just data files, and thus cannot be covered by the GPL. So 
owning
the copyrights would be of no use in court, when suing GPL infringers.

Anyway, we should not allow this issue to slow down the release of 4.9.0.
I can easily prepare a slimmed-down xb_shogi package with only the pieces we
already distributed, plus my own, if that is what it takes to get it on 
a GNU server
quickly. So that we can remove these files from the normal XBoard 
distribution
tar ball. Never mind whether we will be ever able to offer anything else 
there.