Re: mode-line size and position indicator

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > After a futile effort at IBM to obtain an FSF copyright assignment I have
  > given up and been too lazy to restart the effort with my new employer.
  > Hence my .emacs (https://github.com/jsyjr/MyConfiguration.git ) is in
  > the public domain.

If the copyright belongs to you, then you can either assign it to the
FSF or put the work in the public domain.  You can do either one on
your own.

However, if the copyright belngs to IBM, then you don't have legal
authority to do either of these things.  Only the copyright holder can
do them.

This is why we ask a contributor who is employed by software
companies, or works in the software field, to get a copyright
_disclaimer_ from per employer.  Not an _assignment_, but a
_disclaimer_.  The disclaimer is a lot simpler and generally easier to
get.

I don't know the facts of the situation, such as whether IBM claims
copyright on this work.  But I suspect that if you asked for an assignment
from IBM that there was a misunderstanding at work.

Would you please talk with our copyright clerks to help get this
situation straightened out?
-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org)
Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.