Re: Icon designer wanted (Aquamacs Emacs)

[David Reitter]

On 6 Jan 2006, at 12:40, Lennart Borgman wrote:

> david.reitter@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > 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.
> Maybe that is a good idea, but it is actually very easy to sign the  
> papers for Emacs contributions.

The difference is that you have to actively decide to contribute, or  
at least (rare case) being specifically asked. If people signed their  
code with such a legally binding signature, it could be used freely  
by anyone, for any compatible project. Of course, the license could  
even require you to sign such papers in case you integrate or re- 
publish the code.

The only reason I see why people haven't been doing that is that the  
specific legal procedure that applies to GNU project contributions  
doesn't really address an "industry"-wide problem, but only results  
from isolated incidents that hurt a single GNU project in the past.  
But it's a good process that adds value, so it should be promoted  
beyond GNU. To do so, you need paper-free paperwork and signatures on  
a by-offer as opposed to a by-request basis.