Re: Icon designer wanted (Aquamacs Emacs)

[David Kastrup]

david.reitter@gmail.com writes:

>> Get real.  You are headed for permanent forking for the sake of a
>> non-free platform.
>
> Don't worry, that won't happen unless I get more people (coders)
> help me. I don't have the time to follow through with something like
> that.

Nobody has time enough to follow through with a fork in the long run.
Even the once thriving XEmacs project (who once had significant
company backing) is slowly being starved of active developers.  That's
exactly what makes it worrisome.

>> A lot of multi-person projects have sunken into oblivion because
>> past contributors changed their mind, could not be brought around,
>> or even contacted anymore.
>
> OK, so what legal documents are there that I can make people sign,
> say, for code that will not be integrated into a GNU project at this
> time, but might be when the time comes?

No fair, now I actually have to get out of rant mode.

There are several options.  The important thing is to realize that a
copyright assignment covers specific code.  Once the specific code is
copyrighted by the FSF, the FSF is free to shift this code around
within its property.

I think it is reasonable to assume that you are not interested in
having copyright from others assigned to yourself and then having to
pass it on eventually.  That means that any copyright assignments
would have to be done with the FSF as a party.

Even while copyright assigments are just for specific code, they
identify the code by project to which is it contributed.  If somebody
has a copyright assignment for Emacs in case, that does not mean
automatically that stuff he contributes to Aquamacs falls under that
assignment.  The act of yourself moving it from Aquamacs to Emacs does
not magically make it owned by the FSF.

That's the situation if one is splitting hairs.

So there are two ways to have this done:

a) have people write a copyright assigment for Aquamacs.  This means
that the FSF has to be interested in considering Aquamacs a project of
their own for which they accept contributions.  Given that your
development goals include improving Emacs as much as possible for
MacOSX, and this is what makes Aquamacs a separate project in the
first place, and given that Richard Stallman has repeatedly ruled out
improvements starting with non-free platforms, I think it is a safe
bet that this course would not work out.  Simply because the FSF would
not exchange contracts with contributors about Aquamacs contributions.

b) ask people to contact the FSF for a copyright assignment for Emacs.
It is common practice that people with Emacs CVS write access check in
changes from other parties.  I noticed that you do not seem to have
Emacs CVS write access right now (but have a copyright assignment in
place), it might be an idea to ask for it to make things easier.
Notice that you are responsible to refrain from putting things into
Emacs that are not clear with regard to the copyright status, so you
want to make sure that contributors know that you will pass stuff they
put into Aquamacs on in their behalf.  If you told them to file an
assignment for Emacs, or asked actively whether they had such an
assignment on file, that should be more or less safe.  You can
crosscheck with any maintainer of a GNU project, too, as they have
access to the assignment lists, and I'd be willing to check for you.
But even when an assignment is on file, the contributor has to be
aware that his contribution is going to end up in Emacs.  So you
should ask him anyway.


Now there is probably little motivation for a policy of keeping
_everything_ in Aquamacs assigned to the FSF.  That would be a viable
course for projects which may at one time become GNU projects or
change maintainers: in that case, you don't want to pick a project
apart into FSF-owned and other stuff.  But in your case, you can be
pretty sure that Aquamacs will not become a separate GNU project
because of the policy not to make Emacs ports that only benefit
non-free platforms.  The FSF will not want to own and/or maintain such
a port itself.  So code that is so very MacOSX-specific that its
functionality could not be achieved on other platforms, and that
offers an improvement over other platforms, will probably never make
it into Emacs in any manner, anyway.

But when you decide for mixed politics, you need to keep proper track
of what is yours (or rather the FSF's) to put into Emacs proper when
this is desirable, and what should stay confined only within Aquamacs.

For stuff like the icons, I'd write prospective contributors something
like

"Hi, I very much appreciate your icons/work you are willing to do.  I
think they deserve being made available on all versions of Emacs, not
just Aquamacs.  The FSF can only accept contributions into Emacs for
which they have been given the copyright.  I append a request form for
a copyright assignment into Emacs, in case you have not yet filled one
out.  If you are willing to do this, I would be able to make your
icons/code/whatever available for all Emacs versions, and it might
even be convenient for you if you have to switch platforms at one
time, and be able to make use of your contribution there as well."

> I know that certain "qualified signatures" (e.g. via X.509 cert,
> signed by a "trusted party", i.e. Thawte/Verisign etc.) do have
> legally binding status in some legislations at this point. I wonder
> if these things can be be used to sign code including a contract
> that contains the same stuff that we need to sign when contributing
> to GNU projects.  If we can get the "paper" out of "paperwork",
> things would suddenly become much more manageable.

If you are contributing stuff into Emacs, whether on the behalf of
someone else or yourself, then you are responsible not to misrepresent
the ownership of copyright that you contribute: that's what your
contract with the FSF states, and you are held accountable for damages
ensuing from a willful misrepresentation.  How much risk you are
willing to take when communicating with others about what they would
do or are willing to do or have done already is your own choice.

For assignments to the FSF, I don't think anything except paper gets
accepted currently for an assignment, but you could ask 
copyright-clerk at gnu dot org for details.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum