GPL v2 only,please

[David Kastrup]

"SL Baur" <steve at xemacs.org> writes:

> My apologies if this has been discussed before, but it
> didn't seem like it in the 21.5 code.
>
> I wish all my contributions to XEmacs to be considered
> under the GPL V2 only.

Backdated activism like this is one of the reason the Free Software
Foundation requires copyright assignments for contributions to Emacs.

> I do not like Richard Stallman, I do not like the politics he plays
> against us and others, but I do like the GPL V2.  Unless someone can
> convince me otherwise, all of my contributions to XEmacs are to be
> considered GPL V2 only.

Which would mean that XEmacs as a whole can only be released under GPL
V2, spelling an end to synchronization with Emacs (and possibly other
Elisp projects) once the latter is moved to GPLv3.

> BTW, after a couple months of a contract work doing emacs-lisp
> coding, I'm soooo proud of you guys.  XEmacs rules!

Well, I frequently get the impression that several of its developers
are doing their best to put a stop to that, and your mail certainly
falls into that class.

While lashing out against Richard Stallman certainly is quite within
the old XEmacs spirit, it would sometimes be nice if people considered
the consequences and implications of their actions.

Not only will this spell doom for keeping XEmacs competitive, but it
will also make the point that Richard Stallman was right from the
start in his fuzziness regarding the insistence about copyright
assignments, thus not giving any single contributor the possibility to
throw a monkey wrench into future development.

It is not my task to ask you to reconsider, and I will gladly leave
that unthankful task to others, regardless of whether they choose to
pick it up or not.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum