Re: Is XEmacs nonfree?
On Thu, Sep 30, 1999 at 12:54:32AM +0000, David Coe wrote:
>
> Is that still an accurate description of the legal status (from
> FSF's perspective) of XEmacs, and if so, shouldn't we move it to
> non-free?
The FSF does only include code in GNU programs if the author assigns the
copyright to the FSF by signing a paper.
This goes for all substantial contributions to GNU programs.
So, if you want to include a few dozen of lines to fileutils, textutils,
bash or whatever, you have to assign the copyright to the FSF, so they can
defend the code for you.
Debian does not require legal papers from contributors, we just don't care
and hope that our ass is covered by our good intentions (we act responsible
and in good faith).
No problems with XEmacs.
Marcus
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