Re: FSF assignment policy

On Jan 27, 2009, at 4:08 AM, Andreas Roehler wrote: > as FSF assignment policy was raised again at > python-mode(a)python.org, please permit to ask you a > thing I never understood: > AFAIS every Emacs-file is inspired by many, many others > from the very beginning. We see almost always a plenty > of revisions with a lot of people involved. > So how a single developer could ever declare what the > assignment formula demands? How could any person > declare, he _owns_ the rights at the code, thus > assigning it. > Isn't that assignment policy driving developers in a > kind of forgery? Making them false declarations, > thus having rights about them, being everyday able to > sue them for these false declarations? > Or am I simply dreaming a bad dream? For this audience, I'll restate my position, vis-à-vis python-mode. I assert that Tim Peters and myself have assigned copyright in python-mode.el to the FSF. I believe that Ken Manheimer has done the same, and I believe that Skip Montanaro has tried to do so several times in the past. This should cover the majority if not the entirety of the current python-mode.el file. I want it to be possible from a legal standpoint to merge python-mode.el and python.el, taking the best and most popular features and functionality from each. I think python-mode.el should form the basis of the merge, with code pulled in from python.el as needed. Andreas has the current momentum pumpkin for working on python-mode.el, so I want to find a way for him to do this while still retaining the ability to merge the two modes. Note that Andreas, AFAIK has not volunteered to do this merge, although others on the python-mode(a)python.org mailing list have expressed interest. If Andreas is unwilling to assign copyright to the FSF, then perhaps some other mechanism will be acceptable to him and to the FSF. Please explore this possibility. Thanks Barry

From this some chances too: Not every feature once