Re: Basic legal question: Publication of a fix to psgml

[Andreas Röhler]

Am 03.04.2013 10:29, schrieb Bastien:
> Hi Andreas,
>
> Andreas Röhler <andreas.roehler@easy-emacs.de> writes:
>
> > CA, as we learned, is partly privately negotiated.
>
> Not to my knowledge.

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2013-04/msg00066.html

BTW experienced that proceeding already years ago, which is just polite and 
correct as such.

> The copyright assignment is signed by contributors.  I'm not aware of
> any negociations, and I'd be surprised to learn that there are private
> negociations.
>
> > To evaluate the legal state of different parts in Emacs wrt CA will
> > need one or more lawyers.
>
> This suggests that the copyright status of Emacs is uncertain.

Law and legal stats differ in theory and reality.
In theory more laws define more cases and should provide more security.
In reality the realm of possible interpretation is expanded too.

> I hope you understand it is quite a serious statement and requires
> some evidence.
>
> The copyright status for code in Org's code is very clear, and I think
> this is also the case for the copyright status of the rest of Emacs.
> I sometimes get impatient when I have to wait for the FSF Copyright
> Clerk to handle new copyright assignments for a new contributor, but
> I know he has a lot of work and he's doing a great job.

To know the copyright status as such --as assignments may differ-- you must 
read assignment by assignment, evaluate and understand the diffs correctly -
which is absurd as IMHO the whole CA arts.

BTW German law --Urheberrechtsgesetz-- for example declares non-valid such 
copyright assignments - even if signed.
Will a US-court accept CA from a German, when german law declares CA possible?

Read Article 32
Equitable remuneration

http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_urhg/englisch_urhg.html#p0157

I.e. GPL is not affected, as "anyone" matches. Will the FSF count as "anyone"?

Best,

Andreas