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Nano is no longer a GNU project

nano-editor.org

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Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#52
post #3

Looks like the devels weren't all that happy about assigning the copyright of their code to the FSF. Part of the e-mail thread discussing the move is here https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/nano-devel/2016-05/msg000... I did't have the time to dig out the whole conversation history.

I reviewed the discussion but I still can't understand what the controversy is about. According to the following explanatory note from the GNU project, developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project: When the developers of a program make it a GNU package, they can decide either to give the copyright to the FSF so it can enforce the GPL for the package, or else to keep the co…

>developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project

This is correct, but it's up to the maintainer to decide if their project will require copyright assignment from all contributors or not. I send patches to a couple of GNU projects, Guile and Guix. Guile requires copyright assignment, Guix does not.

Assigning copyright to the FSF is very much unlike assigning copyright to a for-profit company. The terms that you sign and agree to with the FSF are very reasonable and they protect the developer from having the license changed should the FSF be taken over by people that would want to abuse your contributions.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#54

don't want to sound nasty , but is anyone there using nano really ? i know it come by default in some distros but that's about it really.

I only use it because sometimes vim doesn't work correctly over putty and I can't not verbally swear every time I have to search a vim issue.

Seriously, if you're spending more than a few minutes a week SSH'ing then forget PuTTY, grab yourself a copy of MobaXterm:

http://mobaxterm.mobatek.net/

It's also Pageant aware and will use that as your ssh key agent if you prefer. And vim works properly. We like it so much we pay for the Pro editions.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reviewed the discussion but I still can't understand what the controversy is about. According to the following explanatory note from the GNU project, developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project: When the developers of a program make it a GNU package, they can decide either to give the copyright to the FSF so it can enforce the GPL for the package, or else to keep the co…

>developers don't have to assign copyright to the FSF for it to be an official GNU project This is correct, but it's up to the maintainer to decide if their project will require copyright assignment from all contributors or not. I send patches to a couple of GNU projects, Guile and Guix. Guile requires copyright assignment, Guix does not. Assigning copyright to the FSF is very much unlike assigning copyright to a for…

As I recall the terms include some phrase like "we might change the license to be similar in spirit to the existing one" which gives FSF and anyone who controls it in the future a lot of wiggle room.

E.g. the GPL v2 to v3 transition was enabled by that, with the introduction of patent/"TiVo" clauses. No reason they couldn't make more drastic changes in the future.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#57
post #36
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much history rewriting or strangeness: pico wasn't open source, nano was open source. nano is still open source. Nothing has changed with this announcement except who own the copyrights to the open source code.

Pico was certainly open source; it was part of PINE, one of the older and more popular Unix mail programs.

Pine wasn't open source either. That's why the Linux distros couldn't include it.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_(email_client)

"The University of Washington later modified their license somewhat to allow unmodified distribution of Pine alongside collections of free software, but the license still does not conform to the Open Source and the Free Software Guidelines so it is semi-free software, effectively proprietary software."

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#58

don't want to sound nasty , but is anyone there using nano really ? i know it come by default in some distros but that's about it really.

On some distros nano is the default editor for crontab. I run into it when I ssh to servers and have to setup cronjobs. I set EDITOR=vim if it's already installed there or I keep using nano and look at the help at the bottom of the page every single time I use it. I use emacs for editing code on my computer. It has got a different set of ctrl-* and I can't remember nano's ones.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#60
post #42
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pico was certainly open source; it was part of PINE, one of the older and more popular Unix mail programs.

I'm sure what the poster meant was the Pico wasn't free/libre software. edit: > because Pico's earlier license was not a free software license, since distribution of a modified version of the code was ambiguously forbidden.

I meant open source, but same requirement to allow distribution of modified software appears in both the free software list of freedoms [1] and the open source definition [2].

1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html

2. https://opensource.org/osd-annotated

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