Plans for NonGNU ELPA

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

           Announcing the plan for NonGNU ELPA

We're going to set up another Emacs Lisp package archive, NonGNU ELPA,
which has less requirements than GNU ELPA.  In particular, it won't
require a copyright assignment, and probably most of the packages in
it will not be copyright FSF.  We may decide to directly include a package
published elsewhere, after checking that it does not't do anything
gravely unacceptable.  When we include a package, we may have to
change its code, but we don't promise to maintain these packages -- if
a package becomes unmaintained and stays that way, we might have to
remove it.

NonGNU ELPA will need a repository system, so we need to figure out
how that should work, then set it up.  Please email me if you would
like to join a discussion about how to do this.

Here are the rules we have decided on for including
packages in NonGNU ELPA.

* We don't ask for copyright assignments to include packages in NonGNU ELPA.

* The Emacs maintainers will decide what packages to put in NonGNU
  ELPA.

* If a free Emacs Lisp package follows the practical criteria below,
  we can add it to NonGNU ELPA if we want to.  If the code doesn't
  follow them, we can change the code to follow them.  We may also
  change the code in NonGNU ELPA for other reasons, technical or not.
  After all, it is free software.

* The package's developers don't have an obligation to maintain the
  NonGNU ELPA version, but we would like to invite them to do that, or
  to cooperate and coordinate with us in doing that.  If you are the
  developer of a NonGNU ELPA package, or a package that might be added
  to NonGNU ELPA, and you're interested in maintaining it there, let's
  discuss it.

* A NonGNU ELPA package must display its copyright notices and license
  notices clearly on each nontrivial file.  The notices do not have to
  follow the FSF conventions about their presentation.

  Software files need to carry a free license that is compatible with the
  GNU GPL version 3-or-later.  Which licenses qualify is stated in
  https://gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html.

  Manuals need to be under a free license that is compatible
  with the GNU FDL version 1.4-or-later.  Which licenses qualify is
  stated in https://gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html.

  All other documentation files, for users (manuals, help files, man
  pages, and so on), and for developers (program logic, change logs,
  and so on), can be under a license acceptable for manuals or a
  license acceptable for software files (see above).  We can agree
  with the package developers to include documentation published under
  other free licenses.

  Trivial files of just a few lines don't need to state a copyright or
  a license.

  Normally we don't include material other than software or
  documentation, but we can agree with the developers to include
  specific material.  If the material in question is an educational
  resource, then it can have a license compatible with GNU FDL version
  1.4 or one of the free Creative Commons licenses (CC-BY-SA, CC-BY or
  CC-0), or another free license at our discretion.  If the material is
  not an educational resource, it can instead be licensed under
  CC-BY-ND.

* The package need not follow the GNU Coding Standards or the GNU
  Maintainers Guide, except for a few specific points as stated below.

* The package must follow the rules in
  https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/, node References.  This means it
  may not refer users to any nonfree software or nonfree
  documentation, except as stated there.  Leading users to run a
  program, and suggesting they run it, or depending on it to be
  installed, are forms of referring users to it.

* The package may install other packages in GNU ELPA and NonGNU ELPA,
  but not any other software.

  We will consider exceptions to that rule, but we will need to
  consider them carefully, to make sure that the practices are
  safe for Emacs users, not just in one package but when used in
  many prackages.  Each time we approve such an exception, we will
  say so in comments in the package, with an explanation of our reasoning.

* Aside from packages obtained from GNU ELPA and NonGNU ELPA,
  a package may not run code that it has fetched over the internet.

* The package must deliver its full functionality and convenience on a
  completely free platform based on the GNU operating system (in
  practice, GNU/Linux), working exclusively with other free software.
  Otherwise, it would act as an inducement to install nonfree systems
  or other nonfree software, and that would work against our cause.

  However, as an exception it is ok for a package to provide, on some
  non-GNU operating systems, features that the rest of Emacs (plus GNU
  ELPA and NonGNU ELPA) already supports on GNU.

  This is a moral issue.  See https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/,
  node System Portability.  The reason for this rule is that at no
  time, in no way, should a NonGNU ELPA package put users who defend
  their freedom at a disadvantage compared with those who surrender
  their freedom.

* The package may communicate with a class of remote services, either
  using a standard interface or using an ad-hoc interface for each
  service, or a combination, *provided* that these services' jobs
  consist of either communication or lookup of published data.

* The package may not use remote services to do the user's own
  computational processing.  "Your own computational processing" means
  anything you could _in principle_ do in your own computers by
  installing and running suitable software, without communicating with
  any other computers.

* A general Savannah rule about advertisements

  In general, you may not advertise anything commercial with material
  in the NonGNU ELPA package or this repositor.  However, as
  exceptions, you can point people to commercial support offerings for
  the package, and you can mention fan items that you sell directly to
  the users.


-- 
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)