Re: Require "this program is free software .... " notice to be preserved on the splash screen

[James Lu]

I am not sure this is best.

I would prefer "Freedom-respecting software" somewhere on the

home buffer, to attract people to the cause of free software.

On Wed, Mar 24, 2021 at 3:03 AM Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> wrote:

* James Lu <jamtlu@gmail.com> [2021-02-13 00:12]:
> Some distributions of Emacs, such as Spacemacs, replace Emacs' splash
> screen with one that heeds no mention to free software. (Spacemacs includes
> a logo of Spacemacs, a bunch of menu items, and a changelog.)
>
> In order to avoid another fiasco of the sort of the GNU/Linux controversy,
> where a variant of GNU software was called something else and disassociated
> from free software, I propose we exercise section 7.4 of GPLv3 to require
> "require preservation of specified reasonable legal notices or author
> attributions in that material or in the Appropriate Legal Notices displayed
> by works containing it"

Maintainer and author of Spacemacs has understood your proposal and
have changed all files to include GPL3 as how it is specified in the
license, included LICENSE file in the distribution and is now changing
the splash screen to include copying conditions.

See:
https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/pull/14552

 syl20bnr commented 3 hours ago

Should fix #14444

    Added the LICENSE file.
    Added GPLv3 terms explicitly to each elisp file
    Updated the years to 2021
    Cherry on the cake, added the GPLv3 logo to the README file:

And wishes to add button on the main screen pointing to copying
conditions.

I wish best for increasing Emacs user number through Spacemacs and We
hope for creation of more free software and better understanding with
help of Spacemacs developers!

Jean