[implementations-list] Re: [gnu.org #393190] Dear FSF clerk, here are all my questions about copyright assigment

[Jason Spiro]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Donald R Robertson III via RT
<copyright-clerk at fsf.org> wrote:
...
> In any
> event, even if all the contributors place their work in the public
> domain, we would still need at least a disclaimer from each of them if
> the project were to become a part of emacs. So I'm not sure how much
> time it would actually save to have them do that instead of just
> assigning their work when the time comes. Thanks again for your
> interest, and good luck with your project.

Thanks Mr. Robertson.  But when the time comes:

1.  What if I can no longer reach them?

2.  What if they then no longer want to bother with copyright assignment?

I suspect it'd be very hard to then remove their code from Vimpulse.

Are there any other options?  For example, can you contact all
contributors and ask them to assign copyright now, even though it's
not strictly needed yet?  Or can you send me a PDF of the FSF
copyright assignment contract?  I could then get every contributor to
sign it and fax it to me when I merge their code.  Then, when the time
comes, I will fax my pile of contracts to you.

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