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syl20bnr / spacemacs

A community-driven Emacs distribution - The best editor is neither Emacs nor Vim, it's Emacs *and* Vim!
http://spacemacs.org
GNU General Public License v3.0
23.66k stars 4.89k forks source link

Proposal to improve GPL compliance #14444

Closed gnusupport closed 3 years ago

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

After reading the GPL, and reviewing Spacemacs, I am of the opinion that Spacemacs is not merely an aggregate, it is one full work that includes various other parts. It does not matter if parts come from various places, the whole package is there.

Review: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#AggregateContainers

I am proposing that authors review the section 5. about Conveying Modified Source Versions, and to see if there is need to comply to it. As it is actually a distribution of Emacs in modified form IMHO. I have not found copy of license inside. I found the reference, but the reference like GPLv3 is not enough to comply to licensing.

Please review:

    a) The work must carry prominent notices stating that you modified
    it, and giving a relevant date.

    b) The work must carry prominent notices stating that it is
    released under this License and any conditions added under section
    7.  This requirement modifies the requirement in section 4 to
    "keep intact all notices".

    c) You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this
    License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy.  This
    License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7
    additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts,
    regardless of how they are packaged.  This License gives no
    permission to license the work in any other way, but it does not
    invalidate such permission if you have separately received it.

    d) If the work has interactive user interfaces, each must display
    Appropriate Legal Notices; however, if the Program has interactive
    interfaces that do not display Appropriate Legal Notices, your
    work need not make them do so.
lebensterben commented 3 years ago

The interesting question is, which of the points you listed above is not already met by Spacemacs?

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Thank you. Please note that this comment is with good faith. I have stated that authors shall review its compliance, as myself I may not be sure of each detail. I have already stated the details, but you maybe did not pick it up.

From my side I have downloaded the package and run it by instructions. So in my opinion the pacakge runs together with Emacs software and modifies on the fly Emacs, so in my opinion it forms new work. That is why IMHO, this section applies "5. Conveying Modified Source Versions.".

Please find more guidance here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html

Myself, I have not verified all of your repositories, as those are developers' hosting spaces. I have verified the master.zip that I have downloaded by clicking from spacemacs website.

Inside of that ZIP file I have not found the license text. It should be there, maybe it is there that I did not find it. You may tell me.

Please verify section of GPLv3 named "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs", as it gives exactly how make proper notice about the license.

Only stating that license is "GPLv3" is not enough. That is what is the case with many files inside of the spacemacs distribution.

I have not seen any notice when Spacemacs opens up. In my opinion that is the interactive user interface. Emacs alone has COPYING conditions, but your modified version is not clearly stating to the user in the interactive user interface anything about the license. I may be wrong.

Please see "5. Conveying Modified Source Versions."

Summary, IMHO, tasks to do:

  1. Full license text file is missing in the distribution.

  2. Source files do not have proper license notices. "GPLv3" is not enough.

  3. Somewhere in the interactive interface you could add short notice.

jangid commented 3 years ago

Thanks @gnusupport for filing this report.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

This is my take on the nature of Spacemacs.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Well, I do not see the classic Emacs when I run it. So the programs contained in Spacemacs package create modified work. Maybe you think with "not modifying Emacs on the fly" that it does not modify the OS executable on the fly. Your software is written in Emacs Lisp (how I see it) and is modified work of original.

Compiling or not compiling is not essential. It is Emacs Lisp. No need to compile

  • It's a framework for setting up common workflows easily in emacs.

Sure, I understand. However, the framework, call it as you wish, is new Emacs distribution. It depends of main Emacs, otherwise alone it does nothing. That is why it is new work.

  • A core library is mostly from original work of contributors of
  • Spacemacs. Sure their license info is not complete and needs to be
  • improved.

Thanks for acknowledgments. As it directly uses mainstream Emacs to provide new Emacs version (remember, compiled or not is not essential as Emacs Lisp libraries are all part of Emacs) -- then all those files have to be licensed with same license as Emacs.

  • Layer configs declare 3rd-party packages and set some sane
  • defaults. They are not modifying any source code either.

I understand your opinion. My opinion is that it is not mere an aggregate work, it depends on mainstream Emacs. Adding to the source code is modification of the original source code. It is also visibly not the same appearance so that demonstrates the modification. It does not matter if it pulls third party packages, all those packages including Spacemacs should be then compliant.

Could you please write your email to emacs-tangents@gnu.org and include your opinion. I will send this copy to that mailing list as well. Please participate there as the subject was brought up in the mailing list. It would be so nice to have all pieces of Spacemacs with nice notices so that people may build more free software upon it.

  • There are some functions that wraps around functions from
  • 3rd-party packages, but again they are not modifying the
  • source. Calling a external library is not modifying source.

Please review: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

Read for example this section: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#WMS

Where it says: " Because the templates will be combined with user data, it's possible that template+user data+JavaScript would be considered one work under copyright law."

Also see this section: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins

I suggest you discuss it on emacs-tangents@gnu.org

Please see: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-tangents/2021-02/msg00002.html

and follow the thread.

  • In a few cases, we pulled in the source of remote package
  • entirely, with or without modifications. But the original license
  • info inside those packages are kept intact.

It does not matter. I see your viewpoint, but I see you lack understanding of what combined work is. You would get better assistance on mailing list emacs-tangents@gnu.org where you can write now, without subscribing.

In my opinion the points that I have presented in the previous comments still stand.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

So the programs contained in Spacemacs package create modified work. Maybe you think with "not modifying Emacs on the fly" that it does not modify the OS executable on the fly. Your software is written in Emacs Lisp (how I see it) and is modified work of original.

Point to a source file of emacs that is modified.

Compiling or not compiling is not essential. It is Emacs Lisp. No need to compile

This is hilarious. Anyone with elementary knowledge of how interpreter works knows that the program needs to be compiled.

As it directly uses mainstream Emacs to provide new Emacs version

What are you talking about? Where is the new emacs?

It is also visibly not the same appearance so that demonstrates the modification.

Following your definition, if you change the wallpaper, colortheme, etc of an operating system, you are considered to modify the OS. This is just nonsense.

dpsutton commented 3 years ago

I have my own init for emacs publicly available. It, as well as this repo, does not contain any emacs code. Is it the position of GNU that emacs inits cannot hide or modify the splash screen?

Github grep search for files with inhibit-splash-screen t. This seems like a common thing. Are these repos fine?

*Edit. Some background, it appears the account creating this issue is not affiliated with GNU despite the misleading name. From their website gnu.support:

We are not endorsed by GNU or Free Software Foundation. We just love GNU and FSF!

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport You probably should be after those guys: #14185 They claimed that emacs is the shorthand and this product is electronic macs.

dgutov commented 3 years ago

Just to clarify: indeed, @gnusupport does not represent the official stance of the GNU project here. In that sense, the username is unfortunate.

The report might still have merit, but I kind of doubt it. Otherwise we venture into "cannot distribute my own user configuration publicly" territory.

ilyagr commented 3 years ago

I think @gnusupport is under the impression that the Spacemacs distribution includes GNU Emacs. This was not my experience -- to run Spacemacs, I had to obtain GNU Emacs separately. I don't believe there is any of the releases in https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/releases contain any portion of GNU Emacs (or, at least, they shouldn't). As far as I know, there's no way for a user to run Spacemacs using those releases unless they also obtain GNU Emacs separately.

However, if there is a Spacemacs distribution on the website or elsewhere that DOES include GNU Emacs, @gnusupport may have a point.

Or does @gnusupport think that merely using GNU Emacs to run Spacemacs makes Spacemacs into an Emacs distribution? Edit: On further reading https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins, maybe they do. It is very confusing.

OTOH, I don't think it would be a bad idea to include a copy of the GPL into the Spacemacs distribution, and make it clear whether it's licensed "GPL 3 or any later version" (as the FSF recommends, AFAIK), or with some other version of the GPL.

phikal commented 3 years ago

I belive the point is this: If someone decided to package and distribute Spacemacs, would the users know that it is just a customization framework on top of Emacs, or is this fact "hidden"?

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

Why would the user not know? Or is there any description of Spacemacs says it's not a configuration but a modified version of Emacs?

vemv commented 3 years ago

as myself I may not be sure of each detail. I have already stated the details, but you maybe did not pick it up.

From my side I have downloaded the package and run it by instructions. So in my opinion the pacakge runs together with Emacs software and modifies on the fly Emacs, so in my opinion it forms new work

(emphasis mine)

Without pointing out to specifics, you're basically asking everyone else do to the work that you admit to be skipping. That is not only unfair, but also rude and lacking a legal basis. Specifically, an 'opinion' is not a legal basis.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

So the programs contained in Spacemacs package create modified work. Maybe you think with "not modifying Emacs on the fly" that it does not modify the OS executable on the fly. Your software is written in Emacs Lisp (how I see it) and is modified work of original.

Point to a source file of emacs that is modified.

Compiling or not compiling is not essential. It is Emacs Lisp. No need to compile

This is hilarious. Anyone with elementary knowledge of how interpreter works knows that the program needs to be compiled.

We speak of the work in copyright terms.

It does not matter how you call it, you can call it framework, configuration, etc. It does not matter because I have not spoken of technicalities or classification of type of software.

What matters is that it is new package, new work, new software.

It really does not matter if you modify C sources or you add Emacs Lisp, you have made the work. It is nice work. It is combination of various other works and Spacemacs programs.

Thus it is new work in copyright terms.

As it directly uses mainstream Emacs to provide new Emacs version

What are you talking about? Where is the new emacs?

Emacs Lisp code is modifying the original Emacs.

Emacs Lisp code in original Emacs is part of Emacs.

Look inside of Emacs Lisp code distributed with Emacs to understand.

It is also visibly not the same appearance so that demonstrates the modification.

Following your definition, if you change the wallpaper, colortheme, etc of an operating system, you are considered to modify the OS. This is just nonsense.

I have not been speaking of the OS and I do not know how is this relevant, but here are my comments for you.

If user changes a wallpaper, user did not write software and did not distribute software. It is not relevant to copyright.

If a color theme is changed and it is not software, that is user's option to change it.

If however a color theme is software and user decides to publish it, and that software runs with GNU Emacs, then such should be published with the appropriate license compatible with GNU GPLv3. The copyright notice must be placed properly in the file of the color theme.

Spacemacs files do not have proper copyright notices, could you please look into that issue as that is one practical thing you can improve, it impacts users of Spacemacs and helps them understand the licensing.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

What matters is that it is new package, new work, new software.

It's not.

Emacs Lisp code is modifying the original Emacs.

So if one writes shell script is he modifying the shell? Or when I program on my proprietary programmable calculator, am I modifying the calculator and therefore violated the copyright of its manufacture?

Spacemacs files do not have proper copyright notices, could you please look into that issue as that is one practical thing you can improve, it impacts users of Spacemacs and helps them understand the licensing.

No. I don't like stupid people. Stop your balderdash and get off this repository.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

I do not know what is position of GNU, as I do not represent GNU project.

However, GNU project got notice on the mailing list about licensing of Spacemacs and that is why I have brought the message from the Emacs Tangents to the Github issue.

Classification of software is separate from the copyright. If the init.el is distributed and modifies Emacs, it creates new combined work and thus should be properly licensed. That somebody calls it "init" is not relevant to copyrights.

Programmers and users may call and classify software as they wish.

Eli-Zaretskii commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport, I really don't understand what is the problem you are raising here. The Spacemacs page says the code is distributed under GPLv3, so where's the problem?

@lebensterben, why doesn't the code include a file named COPYING or LICENSE or somesuch, which would say explicitly that the license is GPL? Or does such a file exist and I missed it?

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

That is definitely interesting observation.

It is related to copyrights, not quite technicalities.

init.el files run with Emacs, so when distributed IMHO such files represent combined work in terms of copyrights. init.el is not just single file that runs in itself alone. Thus it has to carry proper copyright license as it is combined and dependent of Emacs.

How you call it, be it "init" or something else, it is your classification of software.

We do not speak of how software is classified, we speak of copyrights.

You can distribute your program without copyright notice, but that does not make it free software. It may also collide with the GNU GPLv3 because if program is dependent of Emacs and modifies Emacs than it is not in compliance with the license.

If your program runs let us say some processing that do not modify Emacs, then I guess it could be proprietary as well. For example if your program processes some data, like making websites in a batch mode, I guess it could be proprietary.

If it however opens up the interactive user interface and provides M-x commands that modifies Emacs and the license shall be GNU GPLv3 (or maybe compatible one).

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

However, if there is a Spacemacs distribution on the website or elsewhere that DOES include GNU Emacs, @gnusupport may have a point.

For copyright law it does not matter where are other parts of the combined work located. You said it well, Spacemacs depends on Emacs. Thus Spacemacs together with Emacs creates combined work.

Please read the GNU GPLv3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/

Spacemacs is not mere an aggregate:

" A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."

Thus Spacemacs is not merely an aggregate. I have given already references to it in previous comments.

It really does not matter how other parts of the combined work are pulled, fetched, from where, packaged, or not packaged together. They can be apart. There is so much other software that is fetching from other places other parts of software.

That fact of fetching other software does not exclude it from placing proper licensing notices or complying to GPLv3.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@Eli-Zaretskii There's no COPYING or LICENSE file in the root of this repository.

Some scripts are pulled from upstream and the copyright information is preserved.

Core library mostly contains copyright in header of each individual files and usually are declared as licensed under GPL-3, though many don't include the full GPL-3 claimer.

There are also many files, especially those in layer, that are not explicitly licensed.

GitHub's terms of service already grants its users the right to acces, experiment, and modify public contents when the repository is not private. So this is the bottom line. If you seriously claim that Spacemacs doesn't follow GPL-3's requirements and it's not validly licensed under it, at least you can fork Spacemacs. (And then ironically Spacemacs may lost the copyright of the fork, if it's truly unlicensed).

This is the only known issue. It's very unlikely because it's clear that Spacemacs is not unlicensed even if someone claims that. Even if some twisted minds insist that Spacemacs is not properly licensed, so it's not licensed, it doesn't mean it's unlicensed, because the intention of its author is clear that Spacemacs is licensed under something, regardless of whether it's valid. So any sensible judge or jury won't support such claim.

Very certainly there's nothing to do with the copyright of Emacs. The author of this issue has sheerly no idea what he's talking about.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Problem that I see arises from the GNU GPLv3 and I have referenced it already. Here we go again:

Please see "5. Conveying Modified Source Versions."

  1. Full license text file is missing in the distribution.

  2. Source files do not have proper license notices. "GPLv3" is not enough.

  3. Somewhere in the interactive interface you could add short notice.

@lebensterben, why doesn't the code include a file named COPYING or LICENSE or somesuch, which would say explicitly that the license is GPL? Or does such a file exist and I missed it?

Yesterday I have seen in Github repository, such file did not exist.

The three points above remain unhandled.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Descriptions are in terms of copyright not really relevant.

Classification like naming such as "configuration" is also not relevant.

Question is if it represents combined work and thus modified version of Emacs as visually and practically it represents modified version of Emacs. It is not relevant that code was added to it, and that some sources were not "changed" directly. The modification of software is taking place in adding that new code.

IMHO it represents combined work, new modified work thus the section "5. Conveying Modified Source Versions." applies:

  1. TODO Full license text file is missing in the distribution.

  2. TODO Source files do not have proper license notices. "GPLv3" is not enough. This is not even related to the section 5 but to general application of GNU GPLv3 license, and Spacemacs authors with to license it as GPLv3 but just need to place proper notices in each source files.

  3. TODO Somewhere in the interactive interface you could add short copyright notice, something like "Copying Conditions" in accordance with the section 5.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Please assume good faith.

I have pointed out issues in good faith.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Spacemacs is not shell script that does something separate for itself separate from Emacs as editor and environment.

If one writes a shell script that modifies the behavior of Bash shell, and distributes such in public, then such shell script becomes new combined work that modified Bash and is modified work.

When you program on your proprietary programmable calculator, that issue is not related to free software, especially not because you have not say that you are distributing it.

Spacemacs files do not have proper copyright notices, could you please look into that issue as that is one practical thing you can improve, it impacts users of Spacemacs and helps them understand the licensing.

No. I don't like stupid people. Stop your balderdash and get off this repository.

That is unfortunate to see such statement.

Eli-Zaretskii commented 3 years ago

So if Spacemacs adds a COPYING file which is GPLv3, and adds the missing copyright notices to the files it provides, the problem is solved, right? So I see no need to write so many words here anymore, just ask Spacemacs maintainers to add the missing data. Which should be trivial, since they already say on the main page the package is distributed under GPLv3.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

License in the distribution should be there, of course.

But each source file has to have copyright notice as how it is explained in the license as that will give clear information to people that software is free software and that there is no warranties.

Stating only "GPLv3" means nothing in itself, and implies that receiver is supposed to know what is the license, but receiver should not be searching for terms on third party pages.

It is unclear for the end receiver of the software what is the license and warranties.

Eli-Zaretskii commented 3 years ago

But each source file has to have copyright notice

Didn't I say that as well? Why is there a need to repeat each and every claim time and again?? This eventually completely drowns the real issue under a mountain of redundant repetitions. Don't you see how that interferes with the point you wanted to make?

Once again: the distribution should have the license on a file, and each file in the distribution should have the copyright notice at its beginning. That's all that's needed to fix this issue with Spacemacs.

alexey0308 commented 3 years ago

Dear Eli @Eli-Zaretskii

thank you for your resolution of the issue into 2 lines of text. I am tagging some of the maintainers here to draw their attention to the issue, @JAremko @smile13241324 @duianto .

Dear Lucius @lebensterben, I do not think, that being hostile is the way. It's not the first time, when your comment might be perceived rude in someway. I admit, that the discussion is rather confusing for me, but I wish Spacemacs community would solve issues in a more skillful way.

thanhvg commented 3 years ago

Hijack this to express my appreciation to @JAremko. I thought your insistence on GPL header in one of my PRs was exaggerating. Now it becomes reality. I'm observing your prescient insight in action. :)).

To GPL experts, does it means that I can no longer copy and paste stackoverflow code to Spacemacs anymore?

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@thanhvg Code snippets you found online are usually unlicensed and you can adapt those into your codebase, with the following exceptions:

In general, if it's unlicensed you just need to include the link to the original page/author.

dpsutton commented 3 years ago

On Github, snippets are not unlicensed but are Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike

Source: Stack overflow default licensing. How that interacts with the GPLv3 I leave to others to discuss.

My understanding is that this is false:

In general, if it's unlicensed you just need to include the link to the original page/author.

tko commented 3 years ago

Or does @gnusupport think that merely using GNU Emacs to run Spacemacs makes Spacemacs into an Emacs distribution? Edit: On further reading https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLPlugins, maybe they do. It is very confusing.

For reference, I think Emacs can also be considered an (elisp) interpreter which is also covered in the FAQ https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#IfInterpreterIsGPL

I believe some interpreters come with explicit exceptions stating scripts do not need to be GPL compatible. Emacs does not provide such exception, I don't think. Made only cursory check though, and I may be confusing the exception practice with compilers.

Can't comment on whether Spacemacs is an Emacs distribution.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@dpsutton Strictly speaking author of unlicensed works has exclusive copyright. So you're right.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago
  • If the (apparent) author claims that it's licensed, then you should check the license compatibility.
  • If the hosting website claims it owns the copyright or the
  • contents on its website is under a specific license, then you also
  • need to check the compatibility.

That is absolutely incorrect.

Any works are automatically protected unless author has some different licensing terms.

When some work is there without license that means it is protected by copyright laws and thus proprietary. It becomes free software only if explicitly stated so.

Please see the question answered related to US copyrights: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

Where it says:

"Do I have to register with your office to be protected?

No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.” "

Thus when work is created, be it piece of text, software, paintings, image, the copyright exists from the moment work is created. Without explicitly licensing it as free software it is not free and thus cannot just be copied and pasted as somebody wish and want.

In the end that spoils the GNU GPL licensed free software with proprietary software for which one have never got permission.

In general, if it's unlicensed you just need to include the link to the original page/author.

That is incorrect. See above.

While in US it is recommended to register copyrights, it exists just as in all other countries automatically from the moment of creation of the work.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Yes, it is new work based on mainstream Emacs. It depends on Emacs and modifies Emacs in such a way to provide new work.

That is fine and I encourage it and I like it.

Please see the GPL3 where it says:

To "modify" a work means to copy from or adapt all or part of the work in a fashion requiring copyright permission, other than the making of an exact copy. The resulting work is called a "modified version" of the earlier work or a work "based on" the earlier work.

Spacemacs is based on the earlier work (Emacs). It combines various parts and various software into one whole.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport You clearly ignore that most code snippet are short enough to be not copyrightable.

syl20bnr commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport You are the expert here. I don't understand half of what you are saying and I'm not interested in understanding it. But I'm willing to improve Spacemacs compliance with GPLv3 if it is a reasonable proposal (i.e. I don't want 3km long headers in each file).

You are asking about doing this:

Can you either:

Thank you for your help, this is greatly appreciated.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Sorry I cannot open pull request as I do not use Github neither other Git. I have opened this issue, and it should be clear what has to be done, you confirmed it as well in this comment.

  1. Placing COPYING file with the GPLv3 inside of the Spacemacs repository should be a minute of work. Plaint text format is here: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt

  2. Source files can be distributed independently of the whole package, how the copyright notice each source file should look like one can see for example when you do M-x find-library RET async RET with the difference of author's names. Same information on "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs" is written in the license text of the GPL-3.0 above.

  3. Read section from GPL-3.0:

    "An interactive user interface displays "Appropriate Legal Notices" to the extent that it includes a convenient and prominently visible feature that (1) displays an appropriate copyright notice, and (2) tells the user that there is no warranty for the work (except to the extent that warranties are provided), that licensees may convey the work under this License, and how to view a copy of this License. If the interface presents a list of user commands or options, such as a menu, a prominent item in the list meets this criterion."

    As when one runs plain Emacs that is complied to, but when user runs Spacemacs there is no appropriate prominent item in the list to tell about licensing.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

As when one runs plain Emacs that is complied to, but when user runs Spacemacs there is no appropriate prominent item in the list to tell about licensing.

This is completely nonsense.

Spacemacs doesn't distribute either the vanilla Emacs or any modified version.

Users of Spacemacs must already have an installation of Emacs, GNU Emacs, Xemacs, or whatever.

Regardless of whether the users' original Emacs display an copyright notice once it starts up, by pulling the configs of Spacemacs as his init files, the users has willfully choose to use the configuration, including the ommision of startup splash screen.

Spacemacs in no way has changed the Emacs program. The user does.

lebensterben commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport

It has come to my attention that you have published my comments on emacs-tengents mail-list without my permission.

I hereby formally inform you that these are protected under US laws and international treaties, and are considered my original literature works. You must stop further infringement and pull off any of my writings from the mail-list immediately.

ref: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-tangents/2021-03/index.html

ref: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-of-service#3-ownership-of-content-right-to-post-and-license-grants

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

On March 4, 2021 7:31:24 AM UTC, Lucius Hu notifications@github.com wrote:

@gnusupport

It has come to my attention that you have published my comments on emacs-tengents mail-list without my permission.

I hereby formerly inform you that these are protected under US laws and international treaties, and are considered my original literature works. And you must pull off any of my writings from the mail-list.

ref: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-tangents/2021-03/index.html

Yes, you retain full copyright. But commenting is infringing on your copyright.

Pursuant to 17 U.S. Code § 107, certain uses of copyrighted material "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright."

You may raise issue to me personally, it is not relevant to issue at hand.

JAremko commented 3 years ago

Dudes. Let's pretend this issue is closed until @syl20bnr gets back.

syl20bnr commented 3 years ago

@gnusupport @Eli-Zaretskii PR opened to better conform to the licensing: https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/pull/14552

Let me know if this is good enough.

gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Splendid! Thank you.

Additional comment, you know when you launch emacs without any special settings, there is a splash screen and various Help listed.

One of those is the line:

Copying Conditions Conditions for redistributing and changing Emacs

This is because Emacs has interactive user interface, it helps users find licensing condition and understand it is free software, it initiates users to create upon it, participate, contribute, you know it.

Please search the word "interactive" in the license to understand it.

syl20bnr commented 3 years ago

I see, would it be enough if we add a button on the main screen beneath the logo ?

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gnusupport commented 3 years ago

That would be perfect. I am thankful for your insights.

Eli-Zaretskii commented 3 years ago

Let me know if this is good enough.

Yes, I think it is. Thanks!

syl20bnr commented 3 years ago

PR updated with @gnusupport feedback. Also added the GPLv3 badge in the footer of the home buffer.

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gnusupport commented 3 years ago

Great, thank you much!

We hope for many users to develop more software with Spacemacs!

CrazyPython commented 3 years ago

I am the original person to suggest asking Spacemacs to be more clear about licensing and free software on emacs-devel mailing list.

First of all, I'm glad you were able to amicably work together with @gnusupport to do this properly.

My original proposal's intent was so Spacemacs would help Spacemacs users understand their freedom and potentially join the free software movement. Emacs was created as a flagship of the free software movement. On the splash screen, I suggest changing "Licensing" to "Respect for freedom" or "Freedom-respecting software" What is free software. I personally joined the free software movement after being curious about one of the these links.

Alternatively, we could insert a web hyperlink: "Made with ❤️ by a freedom-respecting software community". It's a small thing to do, but people are naturally curious about who made the software they endear, and it's a good way to add believers in free software.