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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

#191

Post by [deleted] »

tzs wrote: post #185
kazinator wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a much less paranoid reason that an organization like the FSF might want copyright assignment. Suppose I take some portions of a GNU project program and incorporate them into my proprietary program. The FSF takes umbrage at this, and sues me for copyright infringement. Without copyright assignment, I'm going to go over every single piece of code they say I took and I'm going to allege that the FSF does not h…

[deleted]

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#192

Post by anonbanker »

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…

so this is FFMPEG/LibAV all over again.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#193

Post by Annatar »

rmmm wrote: post #122
Annatar wrote: post #84

So happy to read that they are leaving GNU, since presumably that means that the project is ditching the GPL license. Perhaps this will be the first event in a chain reaction of ditching GPL.

No. The rift is not over the license itself. From the mail archive Benno states... > > As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, nor to > > anyone else. All the code I write is GPL'ed. You don't need to > > own the copyright on any code in order to be able to enforce the > > GPL. [...] > > Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright was owned by me > before it was assigned to the FSF. It's not req…

That's a shame.

Benno also did not want to assign copyright to the FSF for his contributions.

I'm still glad he did not want to assign copyright over to the FSF (while I firmly believe in free and open source software, I'm dead set against GNU is not UNIX and the Free Software Foundation).

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#194

Post by Addile »

davexunit wrote: post #63
avar wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That means that the contributors agreed to license the code as "GPL version 2, or at your option any later version", which means that they are amenable to changes to the GPL. The FSF could not , however, make a GPLv4 that was a proprietary software license or something. I wouldn't have signed copyright assignment forms if that was a possibility. Really, FSF copyright is a very good thing, and you can even do it compl…

And that's where I don't fully agree. There are many projects licenced under "GPL v2 or later" and they don't need copyright assignment. Copyright assignment is huge and opens the door for way too many legal stuff.

Also Copyright is a pretty US thing. Law differs and many Countries don't actually allow it. Also since you brought up Getmany already: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Germany#Trans... Germany is such a country and even if you were to assign copyright to them it would be legally void to the best of my knowledge. And also other countries that base it on moral rights.

Copyright law is very different between countries and way too strong to just transfer for such a use. If they really wanted to, they should have made a license to handle it exactly the way they wanted.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#195

Post by gravypod »

ArneBab wrote: post #137
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a record like that I think he should be allowed to do whatever he pleases with the project.

I don’t think so. With that argument, anyone could take over any project just because he/she has more free time than the current maintainer. Would you want someone who steps up and does a lot of work in a project you started to suddenly tell you that he/she will now change the vision of the project and turn it in ways you don’t like? Let’s assume that you take your time to write clean code, do changes slowly and deli…

Isn't that the idea of open source software? The best maintainer is the one in charge.

I don't think Linus would object to someone replacing him if anyone was more qualified for the job. Hell he even openly encourages people to fork Linux, make improvements, and follow the license (copy left).

I see nothing wrong with the most active/best maintainer having say over the project's future.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#196

Post by gravypod »

tzs wrote: post #185
kazinator wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There is a much less paranoid reason that an organization like the FSF might want copyright assignment. Suppose I take some portions of a GNU project program and incorporate them into my proprietary program. The FSF takes umbrage at this, and sues me for copyright infringement. Without copyright assignment, I'm going to go over every single piece of code they say I took and I'm going to allege that the FSF does not h…

If the copywrite owners take no umbrage to the use of their code in proprietary software then the company shouldn't be able to sue.

This will probably not be the case if the code is licensed under GPL because the devs are probably going to want to enforce their OSS principles.

You can say the FSF wants to provide a more "convenient" way to handle it but I don't think that "I'll take care of that for you" is a good argument.

It's very much reminiscent Leon the Professional

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#197

Post by theandrewbailey »

jff wrote: post #145
theandrewbailey wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

vi makes me angry. This was obvious when I installed Debian on a 1999-era iMac and had to edit (probably) x11 conf and had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. nano makes me happy.

> had to use vi with JKL; instead of the arrow keys. It made me want to stab something. I can see how this would be frustrating, given that the vi movement keys are in fact HJKL

That's probably what they were. I was trying to remember exactly, since that was over 6 years ago, and I've never had to use vi like that before or since.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#198

Post by snowwrestler »

davexunit wrote: post #174
snowwrestler wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

What is the penalty for that violation?

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#199

Post by snowwrestler »

cyphar wrote: post #186
snowwrestler wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software contracts with conditions are license agreements. You get to use Windows, Ubuntu Linux, Photoshop, Facebook, etc. as long as you adhere to the terms of the license. You don't get the copyright. That's still held by the software company. That's how they can force you to adhere to their conditions--they own the software and they can take away your license. But if they gave you the copyright, they couldn't take…

Contracts and copyright law are wildly different things. It's misleading and incorrect to conflate the two together.

Yes, that's my point--the person I replied to was confusing copyright assignment with buying software, and I am explaining how they are different.

Re: Nano is no longer a GNU project

#200

Post by yellowapple »

tzs wrote: post #165
hundchenkatze wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are accessible over HTTP. http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/nano.git/commit/?id=115aeda...

They are more accessible here on HN, though, because crawlers that obey robots.txt will not see it on git.savannah.gnu.org but will see it here on HN.

I suspect that if a crawler is being used to farm email addresses for spamming, it's highly unlikely that robots.txt would be any deterrent whatsoever.
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