[Erc-help] Re: Copyright assignments

[Michael O. <mw...@gn...>]

Michael Olson <mw...@gn...> writes:

> I did [thorough] research into the unassigned changes to ERC.  The
> result is that only 2 contributors (instead of 6) need to assign
> changes.  One of these has indicated to me via IRC that he is in the
> process of getting a disclaimer.  The other (Jeremy Maitin-Shepard)
> I will contact one more time.

I've heard from the copyright clerk that Brian is being sent a
disclaimer, and Jeremy sent me a message today indicating that he's
going to send in an assignment.

It looks like ERC is ready (legally, at least) to be included with
Emacs!

One of the remaining hurdles to getting ERC into Emacs is the lack of
a TexInfo manual.  I have one or two immediate concerns with other
projects to take care of.  But on Monday, I'll try to begin throwing
together an initial TexInfo manual from the content on EmacsWiki.org.
Since Muse (http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/MuseMode) can
publish Wiki-like files to TexInfo, I'm going to try to do things that
way.

I'm guessing that anyone who wants to work on the manual will need to
sign over documentation changes to the FSF.  The manual would probably
need to be licensed under the GFDL, though I haven't asked Richard
about that particular point yet.

I emailed Richard about the legality of doing this a month or two ago.
The result follows.


I wrote:

I'll look into finding out the most significant contributors to this
[http://www.emacswiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki/EmacsIRCClient] page.  But
first: would it be acceptable for me to make a manual that is derived
From=20this page (but with significant grammar corrections, sections
added, sections deleted, etc.) given that the license for the page and
its sub-pages are as follows?

   This work is licensed to you under version 2 of the GNU General
   Public License. Alternatively, you may choose to receive this work
   under any other license that grants the right to use, copy, modify,
   and/or distribute the work, as long as that license imposes the
   restriction that derivative works have to grant the same rights and
   impose the same restriction. For example, you may choose to receive
   this work under the GNU Free Documentation License, the
   CreativeCommons ShareAlike License, the XEmacs manual license, or
   similar licenses.

It seems that I could choose to receive this work under the GNU Free
Documentation License, but please let me know whether doing the
following:

  (1) receiving the manual under the GNU FDL, and

  (2) altering it significantly and signing over the new work myself

would be sufficient for a manual to be included with Emacs.


Richard wrote:

That sounds ok.


I'm taking this to mean that we don't have to worry about who
contributed the work on EmacsWiki.org, as long as we're making
significant improvements in the process.

=2D-=20
Michael Olson -- FSF Associate Member #652 -- http://www.mwolson.org/
Interests: anime, Debian, XHTML, wiki, Emacs Lisp
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