Toward a "modern" Emacs [LWN.net]

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 25, 2020 23:30 UTC (Fri) by sfeam (subscriber, #2841)
In reply to: Toward a "modern" Emacs by IanKelling
Parent article: Toward a "modern" Emacs

I am assuming that CLA here means "contributor license agreement". Can you explain how a formal copyright assignment is not an example of a CLA? I agree with the OP. If a contributor has already released code under GPL, that should be sufficient for any GPL project to incorporate it. Anything beyond that is an unwanted burden.

to post comments

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 6:46 UTC (Sat) by eliz (guest, #94829) [Link] (2 responses)

> Can you explain how a formal copyright assignment is not an example of a CLA?

You need to read the assignment agreement text to understand that.

Basically, you assign the copyright to the FSF, and the FSF gives it back to you, so that you still have full copyright of the code you wrote, and can do whatever you want with it, including distributing it on whatever terms.

The paperwork is important only to the code that is part of Emacs, not to your original work. Authors always have full rights for the code they wrote.

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 11:13 UTC (Sat) by DeletedUser128680 ((unknown), #128680) [Link] (1 responses)

My understanding was that you do not get back the copyright, that you are instead granted a non-exclusive license to do what you want with your contribution. That is an important distinction: it determines who can take legal action against infringers, that was one of the reasons for having the copyright assignment in the first place. I looked for examples of the copyright assignment papers and found Free Software Foundation Copyright Assignment Form, which supports my understanding. Have things changed since then?

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Oct 2, 2020 10:42 UTC (Fri) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link]

No, they have not, this is correct. It is not possible to assign your copyrights to another party and then for them to 'assign it back to you'. If that were possible, the net effect of that document would be zero.

You assign your copyrights to the FSF, and they grant you a broad license (beyond the terms of the GPL or any other FSF software license) to continue making use of your contributions in any way you wish (as long as that use does not conflict with the FSF's use of the same contributions).