Re: [gentoo-dev] Why should copyright assignment be a requirement?

[Mike Gardiner]

> [Note I am not versed in the many nuances of copyright law]
>
> I can understand this position, however I think some people feel that this
> is in some way removing or diminishing the fact that they have made a
> contribution to Gentoo.
>
> Would it not be possible for copyright to be assigned to Gentoo and the
> author of the ebuild?
>
> I believe that this has been discussed previously on this list (when I get
> a chance I'll search my archive) and that there was an agreement reached
> between Gentoo and an educational institution on this very matter.
>
> - --
>     Troy Dack                       <tad@g.o>

It's interesting that this has come up on the list, considering I saw
this on my buglist yesterday:

http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16001

and asked for comments by those with more experience/understanding about
the copyright situation than myself.

In a lot of ways, for users or contributors, I think it boils down to
credit and acknowledgement, rather than as a legal hold or similar. The
standard method for giving credit for ebuilds submissions, that I was
introduced to at least, was to ensure the contributor was acknowledged
in the ChangeLog corresponding with the first commit of the package.
Something simple along the lines of,

"Thanks to Some User <user@email> for the ebuild contribution". 

I guess to users this doesnt seem as concrete an acknowledgement as a
line like,

# Copyright 2003 (c) Some User

in the actual ebuild script.

In the comments for the bug I commented on incorrect headers as a
syntactical problem with the script, without consideration for the
actual copyright ownership, which, as it turned out, was a much bigger
issue than fixing 'simple' problems with the ebuild.

Thanks,
Mike

// apologies for waffle.




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