Toward a "modern" Emacs [LWN.net]

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 26, 2020 6:40 UTC (Sat) by eliz (guest, #94829)
In reply to: Toward a "modern" Emacs by marcH
Parent article: Toward a "modern" Emacs

> Then I discovered I have to surrender copyright, submit paperwork and subscribe to some mailing-lists

On 1/3 true: the paperwork, and it's a one-time thing.

The rest is simply misunderstandings: you don't surrender any copyright (the legal paper you get at the end of the paperwork explicitly says that the FSF grants back to you the copyright), and you don't need to subscribe to any mailing lists, because submitting an issue makes sure you are CC'ed on any messages posted to that issue.

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Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 28, 2020 9:47 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (3 responses)

Any paperwork is a real hassle for me, however; of my employers over the last 20 years, one would require approval for all OSS contributions, the others only require that I notify them of the contribution and that it's licensed under one of a list of acceptable licences (which include GPLv3). For contributions to most projects, this is enough - I can publish code where my employer is the copyright holder under a Free or Open source licence, they can pull it in, everyone's happy.

However, once you require copyright assignment paperwork (as the FSF does), the hassle level for me skyrockets; I have to get hold of the documentation, take it to legal, give them time to review it, schedule time with legal to discuss what the paperwork means, get legal to produce a document confirming I'm allowed to sign it without compromising my employment, sign it, get legal to sign it, and then return it to the originator. That's an awful lot of work if my patch is going to be a small thing and I don't expect to repeat it any time soon (so may move onto another employer and have to repeat the copyright assignment dance for the next patch).

So, while it might be a one-off per employer for me, it's a lot of effort to go through when I'm not doing a "big" contribution; and because I'm put off from doing small contributions, upstream never gets the chance to encourage me to make bigger ones.

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 28, 2020 12:12 UTC (Mon) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link] (2 responses)

I recommend negotiating copyright ownership of any freely licensed code that you write, then you don't have to involve your employer in copyright assignment paperwork at all :)

https://sfconservancy.org/contractpatch/

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Sep 28, 2020 13:06 UTC (Mon) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (1 responses)

Even on code where I own the copyright, I still have to go via my employer to get permission to sign copyright assignment forms, because of the risk of a conflict of interest between the person I'm assigning copyright to, and my employer.

And, of course, such a negotiation involves all the hassle of going through legal to get a contract change *and* then I have to go through all the hassle again to sign a copyright assignment form. Why would I bother doing any of this for a small change?

Toward a "modern" Emacs

Posted Oct 2, 2020 10:37 UTC (Fri) by kpfleming (subscriber, #23250) [Link]

Even if you own the copyrights on your own work, if you are employed as a software developer the FSF will require a disclaimer from your employer confirming that they disclaim any interest in the works you are creating and contributing. As a person at an employer who had to create a process to produce these disclaimers for our employees, it is indeed a hassle.

So, if you are employed as a software developer, you will need to get your employer to sign an FSF document either way: either a copyright assignment, or a disclaimer.