Re: [gnu.org #44560] relicensing some code of texi2html

Hi,

I have some questions about the texi2html copyright now that I have
asked the texi2html authors.

First some background information about texi2html: Lionel Cons is the 
original author, Karl Berry maintained it shortly and he is the texinfo 
maintainer. I made more researches about the copyright holding of 
texi2html. Here is a summary:

I first asked Karl and he said:

   I was indeed the one who put the FSF as the copyright owner of texi2html
   during the brief time when I maintained it, but that was just wrong.  I
   never actually talked to anyone at the FSF about it.

But then the original author, Lionel Cons, said:

   I've done more research now and found some paper documents from 1994
   where CERN "disclaims all copyright interest" in texi2html and
   transferring all rights to the FSF. These two papers have been sent to
   RMS. I don't know what happened since.

Karl Berry responded:

   I'm sure that Lionel is right, and my memory was simply faulty.  Or else
   I didn't know that Lionel had offered it to the FSF and put the FSF on
   as the owner independently.

At that point it is not certain wether the FSF is the copyright holder or 
not. Could you please tell me if this is the case or not ?



The point of view of Karl is that the FSF has no interest in being the
copyright holder. Indeed, to my question:

      Maybe I could also ask the FSF whether they want to be the copyright
      holder ?

Karl responded:

   I think that will just confuse them.  Since makeinfo generates html now
   (as you well know), I can't imagine rms would want to accept texi2html
   as GNU software, and as far as I know they don't want to hold copyright
   on anything that isn't GNU.

Thus, if the FSF isn't worrying about not being the copyright holder, maybe 
it would be simpler if the FSF disclaimed copyright interest in texi2html, 
such that somebody at cvshome can hold the copyright. Or maybe the FSF could
transfer it to somebody interested in the project (me, Derek Price, somebody 
of the singular project...).

Pat