Hello, T.F. Torrey writes:
> Jambunathan K <kjambunat...@gmail.com> writes: > >> Meanwhile, someone should fix up the FSF assignment notice on those >> files. As far as I am concerned, it is a routine housekeeping thing and >> hasn't taken effect. I am not assigning any copyright to FSF. > > Section 1a of the copyright assignment agreement is very specific: > > #+BEGIN_QUOTE: > 1.(a) Developer hereby agrees to assign and does hereby assign to FSF > Developer's copyright in changes and/or enhancements to the suite of > programs known as EMACS (herein called the Program), including any > accompanying documentation files and supporting files as well as the > actual program code. These changes and/or enhancements are herein called > the Works. > #+END_QUOTE: > > As a signed contributor, you have already assigned copyright of your > "changes and/or enhancements" to Emacs to the FSF (and therefore to this > community). The agreement does not limit the assignment to those that > land in an Emacs release, or those you don't change your mind about, or > anything like that. Any changes and/or enhancements to Emacs became > property of the FSF from the moment you wrote them. > > Because you are not the copyright holder, it isn't even your prerogative > to decide which license the code is released under. It happens to be > GPL, but the code is licensed by the copyright holder, which is the FSF, > not you. > > Even listing you as an author in the file is a courtesy, not an > obligation. > > Furthermore, any future code you might write concerning Org is also > automatically property of the FSF, and by extension this community. You > have no rights to it, moral or otherwise. > > #+BEGIN_QUOTE: > (b) The assignment of par. 1(a) above applies to all past and future > works of Developer that constitute changes and enhancements to the > Program. > #+END_QUOTE: Arguably there is no requirement that any code Jambunathan or any other FSF contributor writes needs to be provided to Emacs/FSF. If I write a library expanding on existing content but wish to retain copyright for myself rather than assign it to the FSF they cannot require me to do otherwise as far as I know. Only if I wish it to become part of Emacs is that required. However in this case, if you look at the earliest commits of the two files in question (EXPERIMENTAL/org-e-html.el and EXPERIMENTAL/org-e-odt.el) they were both added to Org with the lines: ;; Copyright (C) 2011-2013 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Therefore I see that as meaning that they are copyright by FSF and the copyright assignment cannot be revoked except by the holder, in this case FSF. [...snip] > > All the best, > Terry Regards, Jon
