Re: Drop the Copyright Assignment requirement for Emacs

[Richard Stallman]

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  > > I think the reason some people take issue with it is seeing their
  > > names vanish from the first few lines of the source file, and be
  > > replaced by something they don't agree with, or don't understand.

  > I don't know where that rumor comes from, but it's false: this never
  > happens, except when the author/maintainer disappears from the face of
  > the earth, and even then it takes many years.

We delete Maintainer header fields if the person listed stops maintaining
that code.  But why do we ever delete Author fields?

If there is a good reason to delete Author fields, we could, if the
original author wishes, add a file header field "Original author:" to
list the original author's name.  We could agree to keep that as long as that
file or package is still recognizably distinct.

Is there any reason not to do that?


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)