[Nano-devel] Should nano stay a GNU program (Was: time for a 2.5.4-pre1?)

[Chris Allegretta]

Thanks for the feedback Benno, and apologies for my tone last night.
Altering subject to make everyone aware of what I'm really asking.
Still seeking all developer feedback here.

On Fri, May 6, 2016 at 3:29 AM, Benno Schulenberg
<address@hidden> wrote:
>
> On Fri, May 6, 2016, at 07:23, Chris Allegretta wrote:
>> I need *all* folks who are actively submitting patches to speak up
>> right now about whether they want their changes to be assigned to the
>> FSF
>
> As you know, I will not assign my copyright to the FSF, nor to
> anyone else.  All the code I write is GPL'ed.  You don't need to
> own the copyright on any code in order to be able to enforce the
> GPL.  (That is the beauty of the GPL: it passes most rights to
> the user, plus the obligation to pass those same rights on to
> the next user.)

Indeed, and in fact for a long time the copyright was owned by me
before it was assigned to the FSF.  It's not required per se, but
generally speaking, there must be a Maintainer of the Software who
believes in the ideals of the GNU system and will adhere to the GNU
coding standards in order for the Software to continue to operate
under the GNU banner.  You are not willing to do that, which is fine,
and I don't have time to, which is fine.  We just need to figure out a
solution because the current one is poor.

>> and/or whether they're willing to work in the Savannah system.
>
> The Savannah system is fine.  You don't need to be a GNU package
> in order to be able to use Savannah.

No, but nano is a GNU package, and therefore should be using Savannah,
and doing copyright assignments for code contributed outside it.
That's really the issue here.

> Github is no good; it is a closed system.  If you move to github,
> then I'm done.

Sorry (and a bit surprised) you feel that way.  Closed is a pretty
general statement, and I imagine there are few truly Free Software
hosting sites.

>> Benno, Mike S,
>> Mike F, Mark M, especially interested in hearing your take.
>
> It seems that Mark Majeres has disappeared.

Still interested in all feedback from these people, and others who
have submitted patches.  If our BSD developers are still active on the
list they may have an interesting opinion :-)