Re: Loading a package applies automatically to future sessions?

[Stephen Berman]

On Thu, 01 Feb 2018 12:47:23 -0500 George Plymale II <address@hidden> wrote:

> This paperwork is really just over-the-top and it's not right to force
> someone to give you the rights to their code while in the same breath
> talking about freedom. 

Assigning copyright to the FSF does not prevent the assignee from doing
anything with their code (except claiming copyright ownership of it), see
<https://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2014/spring/copyright-assignment-at-the-fsf>. in
particular:

   Sometimes contributors are concerned about giving up rights to their
   work. As the assignment is a gift to the free software community, they
   don't want it to come at the expense of having flexibility in the use of
   their own code. Thus, we grant back to contributors a license to use
   their work as they see fit. This means they are free to modify, share,
   and sublicense their own work under terms of their choice. This enables
   contributors to redistribute their work under another free software
   license. While this technically also permits distributing their work
   under a proprietary license, we hope they won't.

>                        This kind of stuff doesn't encourage any openness
> or "hacker culture." It just makes people shy away from the project. I
> guess all of that is a matter of principle on my part, but aside from
> that I also do not want to encourage the FSF's continuation of this
> policy by signing the papers (which I still cannot anyway).

Are you sure you understand the FSF policy?

Steve Berman