Followup: Re: Releasing the Emacs guided tour into the public domain; also, video

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Jason Spiro writes:

 > Sounds like a good idea, but one small niggle:  then anyone can edit.

Well, that's the whole idea, isn't it?

 > Will the FSF need copyright assignment for small edits?  For large
 > edits?

For the edits as such, no, and no.  However, without copyright
assignment changes will not be distributed with (GNU) Emacs for the
foreseeable future.  XEmacs is not so fastidious.

 > How about the licensing issue:  will the modified material be
 > only GFDL as opposed to tri-licensed?

That's up to Wikipedia and the authors of the modifications.

 > Do we delete all edits from people who haven't put a message on
 > their user page that they tri-license all their edits to the
 > document?

I think it's preferable for Phil to maintain a canonical version under
"all of the above", but that's up to him; the legal niggles can get
annoying.  Also, trashing other people's edits simply because they're
not as generous in licensing as you are may be against Wikimedia
policy, and certainly is somewhat paradoxical.

 > Or does that not matter too much and is it a good idea to go ahead
 > despite these legal niggles?  Better to go ahead and create than to
 > get stuck about legal issues.

The legal niggles necessarily matter to XEmacs, because of the complex
copyright situation we find ourselves in.  Whether they matter to Phil
depends on how he feels about the possibility that some of his
downstream (like XEmacs and GNU Emacs) may not be able or willing to
incorporate such edits, or (in the case of users who choose the MIT
license) he himself may not be able to use edits in future versions if
they redistribute in "closed" form.

Personally, I think he should go ahead and publish.  The main body
remains under the licenses he chose.