[implementations-list] Alessandro, I think we should get people to agree to assign copyright. Do you?

Sun Jun 21 07:36:43 CEST 2009

Hi Alessandro,

The FSF requires that all contributors sign a form agreeing to assign
their copyright to the FSF before the code can get into Emacs.  The
FSF copyright clerk, Mr. Robertson, said that any code contribution 15
lines or more might be copyright-significant.  In the thread I just
forwarded to the list, you can see that he said that.

I think we should get contributors to agree that they will send a
copyright assignment form to the FSF when, hopefully, Vimpulse will
get into Emacs.  Otherwise, if you ask a contributor to assign
copyright and they don't agree, it could be a big headache.  I assume
you would have to delete the code they contributed plus all code that
requires the deleted code.

I propose this.

1.  I edit vimpulse.el saying how to submit patches:

    a)  attach a patch to Trac
    b)  mention that you are willing to assign copyright to the GNU
Project if we ask you to later

2.  If someone submits a patch 15 lines or more and forgot to do 1b),
you ask them, and if they don't agree, you ignore the patch.

You are maintainer, so this is only a suggestion to you.

What do you think?

By the way, I have asked at
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/108538 if Vimpulse can be
shipped with Emacs.  We will see what they say.

-Jason