Re: [emacs-wiki-discuss] MAJOR SPLITTING in PlannerMode

[Michael Alan Dorman]

Sacha Chua <address@hidden> writes:
> **** Licensing
>
> I've been remiss in explicitly asking about the licensing of
> contributed patches. As emacs-wiki, remember and planner are GPL2, I
> currently treat all contributed code as GPL2 as well. My understanding
> may be wrong, but I do hope that everyone's fine with this. I'd like
> this to eventually become part of GNU Emacs if they want it, and johnw
> said he's okay with signing copyright papers. I don't know much about
> how to go about this, though.

Run, do not walk, to every contributor right now (since it will only
get harder as more time passes), and, at the very least, make sure you
have good contact information for later on.

Even better, I would guess, if you can go ahead and get a copyright
assignment to the FSF (presumably for work pertaining to emacs) right
away.

I don't have any direct experience with doing this, or anything, but
the FSF requires that you have the paperwork from everyone who's made
a substantial contribution (they have a definition of what constitutes
a substantial contribution) before you'll ever be able to merge.

It is my understanding that lack of comprehensive copyright
assignments is part of why XEmacs and GNU Emacs could never merge,
even if they could resolve their differences on technical fronts.

I wonder if there's someone working for the FSF who is tasked with
helping people work through this process.

Mike
-- 
You better not mess with Major Tom -- David Bowie