On Tue, 9 Dec 2003 13:58:15 +0000, Colin Watson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> On Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 04:58:26PM -0800, Karsten M. Self wrote: > > on Mon, Dec 08, 2003 at 10:59:01PM +0000, Colin Watson > > ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote: > > > On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 08:33:22AM -0800, Karsten M. Self wrote: > > > > I've spoken to Brad Kuhn about this specifically. > > > > > > ISTR speaking to him about it once myself, but can't remember the > > > outcome. Did you get anywhere? > > > > Well, for values of "anywhere" equalling "take it up with Richard", > > yes. But no specific movement. Among the reasons for polishing my > > man vs. info debate was preparation for a formal proposal. Which > > still hasn't happened. But could. Think it's worth a try? > > I don't really enjoy politics, and trying to change anything in the > GNU project when it's dug its heels in on something generally reeks of > politics, so I've elected to ignore the issue and concentrate on > making sure Debian's doing the right thing. But if you have more > tolerance for that sort of thing than I do, sure, go for it. :) It'd > make the world a better place. > > > > The GNU project's attitude to man pages is one of the reasons why > > > I decided that man-db should not be a GNU package, the other being > > > that copyright assignments would be a headache since one of the > > > former maintainers is dead. > > > > Yes, but dead men contest no bug reports ;-) > > > > On a more practical note: copyright would pass to the estate and > > heirs. It's possible (not necessarially easy) to get assignments in > > this case. > > Yeah. The thought has occurred to me, but it seems rather tasteless to > go and ask. In practice my assessment is that it's vanishingly > unlikely to become an actual problem (and if it does, I'll just remove > all copyrightable pieces of code he wrote), so again I've gone for the > easy road. ..I disagree: It _is_ appropriate to approach the heirs and ask, informing them of the 2 alternatives, removal of his code (just like we're gonna do with any SCO code), and the heirs giving their permission to let the dead man's code work survive under the GPL and copyright law. Chances are very good they will consider what he would have wanted them to do. .._not_ asking, I find _less_ appropriate, because chances are, the heirs may feel we take liberties with _their_ copyright. -- ..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt... ;-) ...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry... Scenarios always come in sets of three: best case, worst case, and just in case. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
