Re: FSF assignment policy
Barry Warsaw <barry(a)python.org> writes:
On Jan 27, 2009, at 9:51 AM, Andreas Roehler wrote:
> Well, that not so easy. Things are much more serious IMO. In any case
> programs published here will be GPL as far as it concerns me, so it
> shouldn't matter for the user if its assigned to FSF or not.
The python-mode.el's header is currently a bit ambiguous as to
copyright ownership and license. The last asserted copyright in the
file is from 1994 by Tim Peters. I know that Tim has since assigned
his copyright to the FSF.
I'm willing to change that line to "Copyright 2009 Free Software
Foundation" and slap a GPL license on the file. I think we're in
legal rights to do this.
Nope. Not if you haven't acquired a copy via the FSF copyrighted
channel. The copy you have is not affected by a subsequent copyright
assignment. You'd have to ask Tim Peters, and even then, since the
assignment is a two-party contract, you'd likely still have to ask the
FSF before claiming (c) FSF. It would probably be easiest to just
reimport a copy of the stuff that Tim assigned to the FSF.
Please note that we resisted the GPL for a long time because python-
mode.el was distributed with Python. All code in the Python
distribution should have the PSF license and specifically cannot have
the GPL. Now that python-mode.el has been distributed separately for
a long time, this restriction no longer applies.
I think you are confused here. The author certainly can choose to
distribute one and the same piece of software under dozens of
incompatible licenses at the same time. Whether or not python-mode.el
distributed with Python is distributed under PSF has no bearing on what
other licenses the author may choose to distribute the software
elsewhere.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum
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