[Python-mode] FSF assignment policy

[Dave Love]

Andreas Roehler <andreas.roehler at online.de> writes:

> Barry Warsaw wrote:

>> For this audience, I'll restate my position, vis-à-vis python-mode.
>> 
>> I assert that Tim Peters and myself have assigned copyright in
>> python-mode.el to the FSF.

For this audience, again:  Unfortunately the FSF only has an assignment
from Tim Peters, and when I tried to get one from Barry some years go,
the problem was that it needed papers from his employer.  (Several of us
had tried to get full paperwork for python-mode.el, maybe including rms.
The authorship of all the code wasn't clear at that stage, so it may not
have been profitable anyway.  I've no doubt that Barry wants to DTRT in
this respect, and I wouldn't have spent the effort on separate code if
it looked as if we had a reasonable chance of complete paperwork.  If
the employer isn't now a problem, maybe an assignment for future
contributions would be useful.)

>> I want it to be possible from a legal standpoint to merge python-mode.el
>> and python.el, taking the best and most popular features and
>> functionality from each.  I think python-mode.el should form the basis
>> of the merge, with code pulled in from python.el as needed.

Current maintainers may disagree, but I don't think popularity with
Python programmers trumps the Emacs coding conventions.  Still, the only
missing things I've heard of either violate the conventions or aren't
specific to Python and should be elsewhere, or already are.

> Difference is not at the level of feature-function, but
> from the very beginning. It's a little bit the same as
> with GNU and XEmacs: you can't merge with reasonable
> cost and result now.

Yes, this follows what's mostly happened with XEmacs historically.  It's
not a question of merging now, though -- this was all long ago.

> From this some chances too: Not every feature once
> implemented turns out useful. Not every feature is
> needed by everyone.

After working with and on python-mode.el, I did take the opportunity to
try to write something clean without undue mis-features.

> I would welcome a friendly, sportive concurrence. So if
> Dave may tell, what's the point of python.el is in
> contrast to python-mode.el, I'm interested to read.

We wanted decent Python support for and in Emacs.  There's commentary in
the file, although it may not be complete.

-- 
We want to cooperate, but we are not doormats.  -- rms