Re: Important: ILISP License Change Questionnaire

[email protected] schrieb:
> Dear Potential ILISP Contributor,
> 
> You are receiving this message because of the possibility that you
> have contributed to the ILISP project. If you have not contributed to
> the ILISP project, please disregard this message.
> 
> If you have contributed to ILISP project, please read on.
> 
> Some ILISP developers have expressed a desire for the ILISP source
> code to be licensed more liberally. As it stands, ILISP's license is
> non-free by the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)item 1
> (http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines). This limits the
> areas where ILISP can be used. ILISP's current license is reproduced
> in Appendix 1 in this message.
> 
> This posting is a "best faith attempt" to determine if there are any
> ILISP contributors who object to a more free license for ILISP. As
> such, this message is being sent via e-mail to last known e-mail
> address of ILISP contributors, ILISP mail lists, and the
> comp.lang.lisp newsgroup. The distribution list is in Appendix 4.
> 
> The first goal will be to change ILISP's license to the GNU General
> Public License (Appendix 2). If there are no objections to that, then
> another goal will be to have copyrights in the ILISP project be
> reassigned to the Free Software Federation (Appendix 3). At this
> point, ILISP can then be a standard part of GNU Emacs. However, if
> there are objections to these changes, then a secondary goal will be
> to remove a restrictive clause that is non-DFSG compliant (see
> question 4).
> 
> If there are no objections sent via e-mail to the below address by
> December 20, 2002, then the ILISP license will be changed. If
> objections to a license change exists, then the extent of the
> copyrighted material owned by such people with objections will be
> determined.  Such material may be rewritten by an entity willing to
> have their contribution more liberally licensed.
> 
> The questions follow. Even you if do not object to a change of ILISP's
> license, please respond to this posting so that your lack of objection
> can be documented. Please respond via to e-mail to the e-mail address
> [email protected]
> 
> Question 1:
> - HAVE YOU AUTHORED ANY MATERIAL IN THE ILISP SOURCE CODE OR DOCUMENTATION?

Yes, Corman Lisp support and some cygwin and ild menu functions.

> Question 2:
> - DO YOU OBJECT TO ILISP's LICENSE BEING CHANGED TO THE GNU GENERAL
> - PUBLIC LICENSE (APPENDIX 2).

Yes. It's more illiberal than the current one. See Q4.

rms' opinion on "non-free" for example restricts the usage of emodules 
or the ffi as it is currently used in the gtk-emacs port.
I need that for my own emacs-ffi's and dll's.

> Question 3: 
> - DO YOU OBJECT TO HAVING ANY COPYRIGHTS THAT YOU OWN IN THE ILISP
> - PROJECT BEING REASSIGNED TO THE FREE SOFTWARE FEDERATION? 
> - (BENEFITS OF REASSIGNMENT CAN BE FOUND FOUND AT THE URL
> -  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html AND ARE REPRODUCED IN
> -  APPENDIX 3)

Yes. I prefer the ilisp license (and the XEmacs license over the GPL).
See Q2.

> Question 4:
> - DO YOU OBJECT TO ILISP's LICENSE BEING MODIFIED TO REMOVE THE FOLLOWING
> - CLAUSE?
> 	o  No fees or compensation are charged for use, copies, or
> 	   access to this software. You may charge a nominal
> 	   distribution fee for the physical act of transferring a
> 	   copy, but you may not charge for the program itself. 

No. I prefer to go this way just to please the debian folks.
But it's silly to remove the compensation clause entirely.

> Question 5:
> - IF YOUR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS 2 AND 4 ARE "YES", PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH
> - AREAS OF THE ILISP PROJECT HAS MATERIAL FOR WHICH YOU OWN A
> - COPYRIGHT. (THIS SHOULD INCLUDE FILE NAMES, FUNCTION NAMES, AND
> - POSSIBLY GENERAL DESIGN COPYRIGHTS THAT YOU MAY OWN.)

cormanlisp.lisp,
ilisp-ccl.el,
ilisp-cl-easy-menu.el:
   (ilisp-insert-menu), defconst ilisp-ild-easy-menu, (ilisp-redefine-menu)
ilisp-hi.el: (file-name-hack)

> Question 6:
> - WHAT IS YOUR FULL NAME AND BEST E-MAIL ADDRESS TO CONTACT YOU IF THERE ARE FURTHER
> - ISSUES WITH ILISP'S LICENSE. THIS MAY INCLUDE SENDING YOU FORMS FOR
> - REASSIGNING YOUR COPYRIGHTS TO THE FREE SOFTWARE FEDERATION.

Reini Urban <[email protected]>

-- 
Reini Urban
http://xarch.tu-graz.ac.at/home/rurban/



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