>> I'd be OK with providing BBDB3 in a beta form through
>> elpa.gnu.org. As long as the version string states it clearly,
>> which it will. You are likely to get plenty of feedback.
> Feedback is always appreciated!
Talking about feedback: is there some warning/discussion about the
change of format somewhere? I'm very happy with your BBDB3 overall, but
the change of format is rather inconvenient (I share my bbdb file among
several machines and would prefer to not have to upgrade them all at the
same time).
>> A rewrite is the worst case, where you can't find the original
>> contributor or they are not willing to assign the copyright to the FSF.
> Some pieces of BBDB in their original form are rather old.
> So I exepct that tracking down the original contributor can be
> more difficult.
AFAICT the main problem will be that Jamie is known for refusing to sign
any copyright assignment for the FSF, and he's the original author, so
any code of his that survived will need a rewrite.
> My main question is the legal meaning of "rewrite". (Almost all code
> has been rewritten in one or the other way.)
If the similarity is due to the "API" (e.g. compatibility with user's
custom settings will force you to share variable names), I think that
such similarity is OK, but otherwise, the code should look sufficiently
different that the original author can't say "look they took my code".
> By the way, I already passed on the copyright to FSF for my
> "general" contributions to GNU Emacs. Is this enough here?
> I'll be happy to do this once more.
For your own code, AFAIK your general assignment can be sufficient under
the condition that you send an email to ass...@gnu.org telling them that
you consider this code to be covered by your assignment (this is because
bbdb is not part of Emacs).
>> That's wonderful.
> Yes and no :-)
Hopefully your BBDB revival (and inclusion in the FSF's ELPA) will bring
new blood. E.g. I've bumped into a few issues in the past but, for lack of
a place where to report them, I never bothered to send a patch.
Stefan
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