Richard Fontana wrote at 15:37 (EDT) on Friday: > Since you bring the issue up, Bradley,
Actually, you brought up the issue first. ;) > I will note that I've found over the years some lawyers claiming to have > been involved in the drafting of GPLv3 who I can confirm never were > there... odd phenomenon. :) I find it odd as well. For my part, I've publicly and clearly said that I (much to my chagrin) was *not* involved in the drafting of GPLv3 (except for some influence in discussions with RMS when it was still called GPLv2.2 back circa 2003). Because of a certain comedy of professional errors, my main role in the GPLv3 process ended up being the primarily technical task of making sure the public commenting system worked. Admittedly, I did have a seat on both Committee A and Committee D (two of the four "discussion committees"), which I suppose was unprecedented for anyone who wasn't involved in drafting. I did have some influence over the drafting of Affero GPLv3, in part because I had originally been the person to invent the idea behind the Affero clause, and because the main thing I tried (unsuccessfully) to influence during GPLv3 drafting was the original plan to include the Affero clause in GPLv3 itself wasn't abandoned. When that battle was lost, I and Henry Poole both urged the FSF to at least publish an Affero variant of GPLv3, and FSF agreed. But, even there: the 10 words or so in AGPLv3ยง13 that I helped write were mostly rewritten by RMS. :) I can probably take credit for the word "opportunity" appearing there, which ISTR suggesting. :) Anyway, I say again that the GPL family of licenses is in my view primarily RMS' work. As I said, he deserves the credit for this. But, success has a thousand parents. Only failure is an orphan. :) -- bkuhn
