atoponce,
@atoponce@fosstodon.org avatar

TIL Richard Stallman stole source code from Gosling EMACS, replaced the license headers with his own, and integrated it into his . Over time he eventually replaced all the original code, but only after initially replacing the license headers first.

Why wasn't he sued? How do you sue a homeless man? What do you sue him for?

Mehrad,
@Mehrad@fosstodon.org avatar

@atoponce

>> Why wasn't he sued?

Because

  1. "Gosling initially allowed Gosling Emacs to be redistributed with no formal restrictions"
  2. The copyright law didn't apply to software at the time
  3. The company who was selling Gosling didn't think a hobbyist Emacs can compete with their $395+ flagship
  4. All Gosling code was removed from GNU Emacs 2 years later anyways

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gosling_Emacs#Distribution

atoponce,
@atoponce@fosstodon.org avatar

@Mehrad It was a rhetorical question.

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