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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

#171

Post by cyphar »

klakier wrote: post #50
cm3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if a or the driving force of a project takes things elsewhere, the users will eventually follow. If the disagreement was over GNU's insistence to require assigning copyright to the FSF, then I can fully understand the reluctance. It's the same reason many contributors cannot officially submit patches to side projects of Google employees, Ubuntu projects, etc.

Do you know that according to copy rights, open source projects are mess. Nobody tried it in the court, but if some developer contributing to project went to court saying "This part of code is mine, I don't want it to be modified by other people", then the project could be in trouble. Nobody tried that (yet). That's why some OS projects require signing Developer Certificates of Origin etc.

If the code is under a copyleft license, then distributing a modified copy is only possible by complying with the license. So at the very least, you can get the code under that license. Non-copyleft licenses might fall into a worse trap here, but that's why we have the DCO. An affidavit is more than enough.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#172

Post by gopalv »

kazinator wrote: post #162
mikegerwitz wrote: post #43

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Be…

The copyright assignment requirements in GNU projects point to the GPL not being good enough, thereby undermining it. They are obviously rooted in the fear that in fact the FSF cannot use code that is merely GPL-ed, if someone else owns the copyright. "Use the GPL for your code to grant everyone rights and freedoms. Just not when giving to us; we would prefer your right, not your left, thank you very much." There is…

> If the FSF believes this to be a real threat, any group of users anywhere relying on the GPL should take the same view.

The issue with GNU license assignment (at least in the years I worked on) was the "defense of infringement".

The only legal recourse for a GPL violation is a copyright lawsuit and that can only be made by the copyright holder in question.

If FSF wants to defend a GNU project in a court of law against infringement, they need to represent the copyright holders.

As a GNU project, you opt into their legal infra as well as the technical ones.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#173

Post by mydudesstop »

mikegerwitz wrote: post #43

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Be…

C'mon now. It is Wednesday my dudes. Please don't mess up my favorite little text editor.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#174

Post by davexunit »

snowwrestler wrote: post #109
davexunit wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

> 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. This does not comport with my understanding of how copyright works. Once you transfer your copyright to s…

It belongs to them now, but under the conditions that I agreed to. So, they have to keep the source free or they will have violated a legally binding agreement with me.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#175

Post by cyphar »

thomasahle wrote: post #70
infodroid wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, if you contribute to a project for example by sending a patch to it by email or pull request then you agree to be bound by the license. Even if there is no copyright assignment. Otherwise you would not have the right to modify the software to write your patch in the first place. This just seems like common sense to me.

The problem is if the maintainer wants to change the license (Like GPL2 -> GPL3). That's only possible if the contributors have signed over copyright, or the maintainer can track down every person who ever sent a patch, and get them to agree.

That's not true. If your project is licensed under "GPLv3 or later" then you can relicense the project under GPLv4 when it comes out. This is the whole point of the "or later" clause in the GPL. It is also not true for lax licenses like MIT or Apache, since they allow sublicensing.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#176

Post by cyphar »

cm3 wrote: post #120
infodroid wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it makes people less likely to want to contribute to the project, because they probably feel like they are being taken advantage of or losing some right I think it depends who the copyright is assigned to. I imagine people will have strong reservations about transferring copyright to a private company or individual. But if the copyright is assigned to a mutually trusted organisation like a FLOSS foundation then I c…

> But if the copyright is assigned to a mutually trusted organization like a FLOSS foundation then I can't think of a good reason that a contributor would withhold copyright assignment. How would one know beforehand what kind of license it will be re-licensed under in the future, and what kind of legal action that assigned copyright holder will take, which you may not agree with? You make valid arguments, but it's no…

Copyright assignment isn't binary. It's a contractual agreement like anything else. You can make requirements like "it will always be under copyleft" (which is what the FSF and some Apache projects do). You should avoid projects that ask for blanket copyright assignment on a copylefted work.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#177

Post by [deleted] »

belorn wrote: post #110
mikegerwitz wrote: post #43

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Be…

Correct me if I am wrong here, but it sounds like GNU project requires that either all code is assigned to FSF, or none and then the project need to enforce copyright themselves. In this case, the current maintainer want to assign copyright, the new co-mainter don't, and thus the project got an internal conflict between the maintainer and co-maintainer. The hostility is thus primarily between the two maintainers, rat…

[deleted]

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#178

Post by mikegerwitz »

kazinator wrote: post #162
mikegerwitz wrote: post #43

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Be…

The copyright assignment requirements in GNU projects point to the GPL not being good enough, thereby undermining it. They are obviously rooted in the fear that in fact the FSF cannot use code that is merely GPL-ed, if someone else owns the copyright. "Use the GPL for your code to grant everyone rights and freedoms. Just not when giving to us; we would prefer your right, not your left, thank you very much." There is…

> The copyright assignment requirements in GNU projects point to the GPL not being good enough, thereby undermining it.

FSF copyright assignment for GNU projects is optional, and simply allows them to enforce the copyright on your behalf; most individuals don't have such resources available.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#179

Post by cyphar »

bluejekyll wrote: post #91
nnutter wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think GPL2 -> GPL3 is a valid example of that. Usually it is to dual-license with a non-open-source license or some other incompatible open-source licenses. The GPL "upgrade" clause, > Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of t…

I think you missed the if clause: > If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", I'm no lawyer, but I think the source has to mention that explicitly. So it's not true of ALL gpl projects. In this case though you are right because nano, it appears, specifies it's license as: > License: GNU General Public License v3 or later So, while true in this case it's not…

Most GPL projects do this. I don't have access to my box, but if you did a search for licenses you'd find many use "or later" (and in fact a lot of code within Linux uses "or later" as well). So practically it's a very common upgrade path. And some people will actually email every contributor to ask to relicense the code.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#180

Post by mikegerwitz »

Tomte wrote: post #129
mikegerwitz wrote: post #43

I'm on the GNU maintainers team; I want to clarify a couple things about this: First, Nano has _not_ left the GNU project; GNU Nano still does and will continue to exist. The current maintainer of GNU Nano---Chris Allegretta---was hoping to add Benno Schulenberg as a co-maintainer, citing numerous contributions by him. Unfortunately, Benno refused to accept GNU's maintainership agreement, and so was not appointed. Be…

It seems to me he's not forking. He's leaving GNU. That you intend to continue having a "GNU nano" doesn't change that. Just because it happened to be on your web space doesn't make it your project. A project is first and foremost the people behind it. Not a hosting provider. I consider you the fork. Without hostility. Edit: I may have missed/confused the acting people here. I'm not sure anymore if my comment above r…

> I consider you the fork. Without hostility.

Nano has been part of the GNU Project since 2001, and Benno has been contributing to that project for years.

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