Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: copyright attribution clarifications

[Rich Freeman]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2018 at 6:45 AM Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@g.o> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 07:50:48 -0800 Rich Freeman wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 6:46 PM William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 06:17:17PM -0800, Rich Freeman wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 10:32 AM William Hubbs <williamh@g.o> wrote:
> > > > >
> >
> > Give me an example of a Linux kernel source file that contains a
> > multiline table of years and copyright holders.  At best you'll find
> > random notices scattered around files in my experience, mostly because
> > of how the code was pulled in from outside.
>
> Sure, from line 4 to line 10:
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/char/random.c
>
> Multiline table with copyright holders and separate years for each
> one.

Sure, now look at the very next file in the same directory:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/drivers/char/raw.c

No copyright notice at all.

As I said, you'll find random notices scattered at various places.
Sometimes they are more consecutive than others, probably more due to
wherever they were borrowed from.

>
> > > Look anywhere outside the Gentoo tree. For that matter, take the Linux
> > > kernel, or even in the systemd source, there are several places with
> > > multiple copyright notices in them.
> >
> > Find me any project that organizes these into tables with years and
> > copyright holders at the top of the file consistently as a matter of
> > policy.  As far as I can tell the Linux project has no consistent
> > policy on this front, and systemd inherited numerous outside source
> > trees as its scope expanded.
>
> We are not talking about demanding multiline headers for each
> ebuild, we are talking about a policy allowing such headers if
> necessary. This is the essentially same as Linux kernel does.

The Linux kernel has no policy at all regarding copyright notices.
So, they allow anything and everything as far as I can tell.  Or, if
they apply any filters it is just at the individual committer level as
code trickles its way up.

-- 
Rich