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>>>>> On Mon, 11 Jun 2018, NP-Hardass wrote: |
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|
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> On 06/10/2018 04:34 PM, Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
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> [...] |
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|
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>> Copyright Attribution |
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>> --------------------- |
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>> |
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>> All files included in Gentoo projects must contain an appropriate |
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>> copyright notice, as defined by this policy. |
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>> |
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>> A proper copyright notice appears near the top of the file, and reads:: |
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>> |
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>> Copyright YEARS LARGEST-CONTRIBUTOR [OTHER-CONTRIBUTORS] and others |
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>> |
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>> The largest contributor is whatever entity owns copyright to some |
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>> portion of the largest number of lines in the file. Additional |
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>> contributors can be listed, but this is neither required nor |
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>> recommended. The "and others" text may be omitted if the explicitly |
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>> listed contributors hold copyright to the entire file. |
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|
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> Why is this not recommended? Here are a couple of scenarios that came to |
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> mind that lead to me to question how that would play out: |
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> If developer A writes 51% of the lines of an ebuild and developer B |
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> writes 49%, should B not be listed? |
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|
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With the current policy neither of them is listed, so listing A would |
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be an improvement. The goal is to keep things simple, and listing only |
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the largest contributor looks like the simplest solution. For example, |
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listing the two largest contributors would lead to similar problems. |
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What should we do if A and B each write 34% and C writes 32%? |
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|
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In a previous version of the draft, we had required a full list of |
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copyright holders to be listed somewhere in the file, and 60% of the |
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lines to be accounted for: |
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https://gitweb.gentoo.org/data/glep.git/commit/?id=bb756839bbd403059f6faeceaa114346d2a840d7 |
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|
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We changed that because neither tracing the number of lines nor |
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maintaining a list of authors in every ebuild seems feasible. |
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|
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> What if all the metadata lines defining variables consists of 75% of the |
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> file and was written by A, but the core functionality of the ebuild (25% |
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> by size) was written by B? |
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|
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That would get us into a discussion on which portions of an ebuild are |
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copyrightable and which are not. Again, we want simple rules there. |
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|
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> If A writes an ebuild, and B replaces a majority (>50%) of the ebuild, |
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> should B remove A from attribution? |
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> I think that specifying that substantial (though not necessarily |
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> specific in defining this) contributions/contributors should included in |
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> the copyright attribution and that substantial contribution attribution |
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> *is* recommended. |
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|
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See above. Explicitly listing only one copyright holder in the |
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copyright line looks like the simplest possible solution. Listing |
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nobody would be even simpler, but I think that you cannot have a |
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copyright line without at least one entity. |
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|
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Also note that the exercise is _not_ about giving credit to authors |
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(and we currently don't do that with the Foundation copyright either). |
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The purpose of the copyright notice is to make a statement that the |
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work is copyrighted, in order to defeat a possible defense of |
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"innocent infringement". |
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|
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Ulrich |