Re: [Gnu-arch-users] GNU copyright assignment

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Miles" == Miles Bader <address@hidden> writes:

    Miles> On Thu, Oct 21, 2004 at 05:39:35PM -0500, John Meinel
    Miles> wrote:

    >> What I understand is that the FSF will allow you to contribute
    >> code, and then hide your name from the list of authors.

Not "will"; it won't do so intentionally.  It can do so legally,
however; it makes no promise not to do so.

    Miles> It's a matter of privacy -- contributing code anonymously
    Miles> seems like a perfectly reasonable desire for some people

Certainly.  However, by default the contribution should be open, so
that downstream users know who to contact for expertise on the code.

    Miles> (Bill Gates' secret Emacs hacks :-) and FSF should respect
    Miles> that (which apparently they do).

What do you mean by that?  etc/AUTHORS, ChangeLogs, etc.  In fact,
etc/AUTHORS is apparently mechanically-generated (cf the list of files
Gerd wrote).  Clearly anonymous contribution is not the default.

    Miles> Morever, the FSF has no duty to make it easy for 3rd
    Miles> parties to work around the GPL!

No, it doesn't.  But with respect to my own code and documentation, I
use the GPL only because I have to (until I decide to start an FSB,
then I'll use it for the business advantages it gives me compared to
MIT/BSD-style :-).  I want it to be _advertised_ that my contributions
are available from me under a permissive license.  There is no way
that I can enforce that under the standard assignment; I would have to
negotiate a special one.

As I said, I doubt anybody but me on this list feels that way.
(Although, come to think of it, that kind of thing is the primary
motivation for the "invariant sections" clauses of the GFDL.)

-- 
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