Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright issues (Was: udev-ng?)

[Rich Freeman]

On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 12:06 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@g.o> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 19, 2012 at 07:03:12AM -0500, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> That's my main concern here.  Can somebody say, "sure, go ahead and
>> remove my name from the copyright line" and then sue you for doing it?
>
> Just removing the name doesn't remove the copyright itself, but, and
> this is the important thing, it shows "intent".  Intent is a very
> powerful thing when it comes to legal enforcement.  If you remove a
> copyright line, or add your own line, you are showing what you are
> wanting to do here.
>
> So if you remove a copyright line, you are showing your "intent" to
> remove the legal notification of the original copyright holders of the
> file, which, in numerous juristictions, can be a very serious offence.
>
> Again, talk to a lawyer for all of the details if you are curious.

So, I give you a file.  Then I tell you IN WRITING that you can go
ahead and remove my name from the copyright line if you want to.

I think it would be hard for me to argue that I should be able to
obtain damages when I gave you authorization to remove my name.

I think the general intent is not to pretend that others did not
contribute to the work before, but rather to avoid cluttering the file
with a laundry list of names.

That said, I'd be happy to chat with a lawyer about this, and if you
know of any who wouldn't mind having such a conversation free of
charge, let me know, or feel free to point them to the list.

> No one has to "fight" at all here, the law is very clear, and a quick
> consultation with a copyright lawyer can provide us with a very good set
> of rules and boundry conditions that all of us need to follow in order
> to ensure that the Foundation does not get into any trouble when it
> comes to copyrights.

The only way to avoid trouble when it comes to copyright is to never
copy anything, or link to anything, and make sure that anybody else
using your internet connection does the same.

Everything after that is just an exercise in risk mitigation.  I don't
think there is any basis in law for getting in trouble for removing
names from copyrights for GPL works.  That said, there doesn't need to
be a basis in law for being sued, or even for losing a lawsuit.  So,
if I had to vote on this as a trustee I'd likely take the conservative
approach.  However, I'll reserve my right to whine about the problems
with the legal system all the same.  :)

From my general interactions with lawyers in the US they're very
pragmatic.  They aren't about "right and wrong" but rather what you
can and can't get away with.  It really doesn't matter if I'm
completely right and you're completely wrong, if in order for me to
exercise my rights I have to spend $100k fighting in courts, and
perhaps even losing in the process.  In the US, your rights are
whatever you can afford for them to be.

On the topic of risk mitigation - it is all about what you get vs what
you could lose.  Honestly I don't see much reason for removing people
from copyright lines other than for the sake of decluttering.  That
being the case, the wisest move might be to just add the Foundation to
copyright statements and leave the rest alone.  For ebuilds I'd
probably keep the headers in accordance with the standard format, and
just move any existing copyright statements further down in the file.
If clutter gets really bad we should consider whether we can just move
excessive copyright statements to the end of the file, perhaps with a
reference at the top next to a single line copyright statement
(Copyright 2012 Gentoo Foundation, et al - Licensed under... - see end
of file for further details).

Rich