bug#19479: Copyright issue

[Kelly Dean]

I wrote:
> Anyway, my patch that Glenn objected to was created in the past, not the 
> future, so at least that one is ok.

Actually my future patches are ok too.

http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnulib.git/plain/doc/Copyright/disclaim.program
 says:
⌜Digital Stimulation Corporation hereby disclaims all copyright interest
  in the program "seduce" (a program to direct assemblers to make passes at
  compilers under GNU Emacs) written by Hugh Heffner, including both the
  present version of the program and his/her future changes and
  enhancements to it.⌝

Notice the disclaimer applies to future work. Which means my disclaimer 
applying to future work is effective.

If the FSF thinks it has to register those PD works (which would be absurd, but 
absurdity has never stopped lawyers), that's a separate issue from the one-time 
disclaimer (covering past and future work) that the disclaim.program file shows 
that the FSF does accept. It isn't any extra burden for the FSF compared to 
assignment, since obviously the FSF can only register intellectual property 
ownership of assigned works after those works are created too, so the FSF still 
has to constantly (or annually or whatever) send new paperwork to the copyright 
office even for contributors who have signed an assignment form. IOW, Stefan 
keeps the lawyers a lot busier than I do. ;-)

But again, even if for some weird reason the lawyers think my disclaimer for 
future work isn't effective, it certainly is effective for my previous work, 
including my patch for bug #19479. (And if it isn't, then they're welcome to 
point out what's wrong with it, and send me a disclaimer form that _is_ 
effective, which I asked for already in 2012). If necessary, I can re-date and 
re-sign it in the future to cover new work, which is fine since my 
contributions to Emacs are infrequent.