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On 11/18/2012 11:34 PM, Greg KH wrote: |
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> On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 11:21:20PM -0500, Richard Yao wrote: |
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>> On 11/18/2012 11:22 PM, Greg KH wrote: |
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>>> On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 11:05:05PM -0500, Richard Yao wrote: |
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>>>> On 11/18/2012 09:58 PM, Greg KH wrote: |
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>>> |
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>>> <an on-topic discussion about copyright thread response from me snipped> |
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>>> |
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>>>> We develop open source software in public repositories. A developer |
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>>>> decided it would be helpful to change the software name systemd to |
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>>>> eudev, among other things, in various files after misunderstanding what |
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>>>> the Foundation officers in charge of legal matters had approved. You |
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>>>> objected to it. I asked for clarification after seeing that your name |
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>>>> had not been removed from any copyright notices. You explained your |
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>>>> complaint. I asked you to wait for the person who wrote the commit to |
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>>>> fix it. It was fixed. |
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>>>> |
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>>>> That is all that was necessary. Whining on the list did not wake the |
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>>>> author of that commit sooner. Furthermore, the changes that you wanted |
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>>>> would have been made in a few days had you not become involved. |
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>>> |
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>>> None of the words you wrote here seem to me to be related to my response |
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>>> about copyright, the Gentoo Foundation, and how copyright works for |
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>>> software projects at all. So I'm a bit confused, what are you concerned |
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>>> about here? |
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>>> |
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>>> greg k-h |
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>> |
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>> Your issue has been resolved. You can stop beating the dead horse now. |
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> |
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> I was responding to a discussion about how copyright works, and how it |
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> should be marked as such for Gentoo-related projects, that was not |
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> correct in my knowledge of copyright law. It had nothing to do with "my |
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> issue", or the udev issue at all, which is why I even changed the |
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> subject. |
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> |
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> Oh well. |
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> |
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> *plonk* |
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|
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Greg, |
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|
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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 and |
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would hope I can draw on it again in the future, because despite what |
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you said a few emails ago, copyright/left is not something that every |
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software developer understands. |
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My fundamental confusion was over the question of what is the smallest |
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copyrightable unit. I think in terms of blame/kudos and the unit that |
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comes to mind is one commit, properly isolated. When a project becomes |
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serious, I get careful about the signoffs vs authors vs reporters etc. |
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And "blame" is as much a part of the game as "kudos". |
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|
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The other levels are files and projects. So this leads to the other |
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confusion, do you touch every file in the project when forking etc. |
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|
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The answer appears to be that a file is the unit, but from practice I've |
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seen all three. What is correct is what passes in the courts and I do |
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not want to, nor have I ever, tested that. Thus working with copyright |
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is fundamentally different than working with code because I can readily |
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test one but not the other. Since you only gain experience by doing |
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something, I can confidently say I have zero copyright experience. |
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Again thanks. |
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|
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-- |
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Anthony G. Basile, Ph. D. |
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Professor of Information Technology |
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D'Youville College |
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Buffalo, NY 14201 |
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(716) 829-8197 |
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