GFDL does not...

Posted Mar 7, 2005 6:19 UTC (Mon) by dvdeug (guest, #10998)
In reply to: GFDL does not... by giraffedata
Parent article: A day in the life of emacs

Xemacs pulled out because RMS wanted to be lead dictator in Emacs. Efforts at reconciliation have failed because RMS wants the successor to be 100% compatible with Emacs, even though it's not possible to be 100% compatible with both and XEmacs is better designed in some of those places.

Copyright assignment is a pain in the ass, but there's no evidence that if FSF asked for something specific from XEmacs, like XEmacs people have done here, that they wouldn't assign the rights. The FSF certainly has the right to use the code without an assignment. Honestly, the FSF has provided code under the GPL, and so have the XEmacs people; why are the XEmacs people not cooperating because they aren't copyright assigning their work to the FSF, when the reverse isn't happening?

the fact that RMS isn't willing to contribute even more to the cooperation doesn't mean Xemacs is any less at fault for the lack of cooperation.

I find the concept that it's all XEmacs fault for not cooperating to be nonsense. The XEmacs people have a number of complaints about when RMS wouldn't cooperate.