copyright issues and derivative work (the case of matlab-mode)

[Uwe Brauer]

Hi

I am in the second round to make sure that every code line in
matlab-mode has been written by an author who signed the FSF papers,
following Stefan's suggestion.


Since the repository started more than 20 years ago as CVS, that work is
a bit extensive. So far I found the following cases

    1. Patches, that contain more than 15 lines, which according to
       https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Legally-Significant.html
       is legally relevant. Fortunately the corresponding authors  sign
       or are willing to sign the FSF papers.

    2. Patches, that contain less *than* 15 lines, which according to
       https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Legally-Significant.html
       is *not* legally relevant. No action is needed.

    3. Patches, that contain more than 15 lines, which according to
       https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Legally-Significant.html
       is legally relevant. However the current HEAD (tip) state of the
       repository contains less than 15 lines or even no line at all.
       Now there are two possibilities.

       a. The orginal patch is no longer relevant, and therefore no action is 
needed.
          That is what common sense would tell me.

       b. Although the code is not present now, it was present in some
          commit in the past, therefore the rest of the commits is
          derivative work.

If b. is the case we are doomed, but I cannot belive that some commit at
some point acts like a virus «infecting» the descents of that commit,
till today.

Can somebody please enlighten me?

Regards

Uwe Brauer

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