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On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 07:41:54AM -0500, Anthony G. Basile wrote: |
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> Thank you for these responses because they did help me understand |
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> copyright/left better. I appreciate your expertise in the matter |
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> and would hope I can draw on it again in the future, because despite |
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> what you said a few emails ago, copyright/left is not something that |
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> every software developer understands. |
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I'm curious as to why this is? Didn't you learn about this in school |
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(if you went to school for software development), or from any company |
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you have worked for? At numerous companies I have worked for, it was |
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part of the "introduction to company FOO, here's your legal training on |
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what to do and not to do with regards to open source." _ANY_ company |
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dealing with Linux should have this type of thing in place, otherwise, |
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as I have found out first hand, it can get you in big trouble. |
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> My fundamental confusion was over the question of what is the |
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> smallest copyrightable unit. I think in terms of blame/kudos and |
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> the unit that comes to mind is one commit, properly isolated. When |
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> a project becomes serious, I get careful about the signoffs vs |
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> authors vs reporters etc. And "blame" is as much a part of the game |
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> as "kudos". |
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Yes, an individual "unit" of contribution is copyrightable, but, and |
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this is the important part, it doesn't modify the overall copyright of |
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the whole file unless some other criteria is met (i.e. a "major" change |
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to the file overall, this has come to mean at least 1/3 of the |
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logic/code.) |
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And then there's the overall copyright for the whole program, which too |
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depends on the copyrights of the individual files, that is another thing |
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to determine. |
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Yes, this isn't obvious at first glance, go consult a copyright lawyer |
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for the specific details if you are curious about it. |
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Which, again, I strongly feel that the Foundation needs to do before |
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anymore "Copyright Gentoo Foundation" marks get added to _any_ files in |
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our tree. |
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thanks, |
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|
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greg k-h |