Gentoo Archives: gentoo-project

From: Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o>
To: gentoo-project@l.g.o, gentoo-nfp@l.g.o
Subject: [gentoo-project] [RFC] GLEP 76: Copyright Policy [v4]
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 19:25:19
Message-Id: w6g1s9g6oz5.fsf_-_@kph.uni-mainz.de
In Reply to: [gentoo-project] [RFC] GLEP 76: Copyright Policy [v3] by Ulrich Mueller
1 Here is another small update of the copyright GLEP, resulting from a
2 recent discussion on IRC. This is not a change of policy, but merely
3 a clarification of the real name requirement:
4
5 - The Signed-off-by line must contain the name of a natural person.
6
7 - A copyright holder can be a legal entity (e.g., a company) in some
8 jurisdictions.
9
10 Below is a diff to the previous (approved) version, followed by the
11 GLEP's full text.
12
13 Ulrich
14
15
16 diff --git a/glep-0076.rst b/glep-0076.rst
17 index 4c0ffcb..4f9479b 100644
18 --- a/glep-0076.rst
19 +++ b/glep-0076.rst
20 @@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Type: Informational
21 Status: Accepted
22 Version: 1
23 Created: 2013-04-23
24 -Last-Modified: 2018-09-15
25 +Last-Modified: 2018-09-26
26 Post-History: 2018-06-10, 2018-06-19, 2018-08-31
27 Content-Type: text/x-rst
28 ---
29 @@ -133,9 +133,9 @@ with the project's license.
30
31 For commits made using a VCS, the committer shall certify agreement to
32 the Certificate of Origin by adding ``Signed-off-by: Name <e-mail>``
33 -to the commit message as a separate line. Committers must use their
34 -real name, i.e., the name that would appear in an official document
35 -like a passport.
36 +to the commit message as a separate line. The sign-off must contain
37 +the committer's legal name as a natural person, i.e., the name that
38 +would appear in a government issued document.
39
40 The following is the current Gentoo Certificate of Origin, revision 1:
41
42 @@ -197,6 +197,9 @@ author, or the contributor holding copyright to the largest portion
43 of the file. Additional copyright holders can be listed, but this is
44 normally not required. The "and others" text may be omitted if the
45 explicitly listed contributors hold copyright to the entire file.
46 +In some jurisdictions, the copyright holder can also be a company or
47 +other legal entity, and therefore be different from the original
48 +author.
49
50 Anyone finding a file out of compliance should file a bug against the
51 associated project/package providing as much information as possible.
52 @@ -235,7 +238,8 @@ The copyright model is built on the DCO model used by the Linux kernel
53 and requires all contributors to certify the legitimacy of their
54 contributions. This also requires that they use their real name for
55 signing; an anonymous certification or one under a pseudonym would not
56 -mean anything.
57 +mean anything. This policy is derived from the Linux project's policy
58 +[#SUBMITTING-PATCHES]_.
59
60 In the future, a second stage of this policy may use a combination of
61 the DCO model and an FLA model [#FLA]_ as it is used by different open
62 @@ -366,6 +370,11 @@ References
63 .. [#FLA] FSFE Legal: Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA),
64 https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/fla.en.html
65
66 +.. [#SUBMITTING-PATCHES] Submitting patches: the essential guide to
67 + getting your code into the kernel,
68 + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst?h=v4.18#n460
69 + https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=af45f32d25cc1e374184675eadc9f740221d8392
70 +
71 .. [#CC-SOFTWARE] Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software?
72 https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software
73
74
75
76 ---
77 GLEP: 76
78 Title: Copyright Policy
79 Author: Richard Freeman <rich0@g.o>,
80 Alice Ferrazzi <alicef@g.o>,
81 Ulrich Müller <ulm@g.o>,
82 Robin H. Johnson <robbat2@g.o>,
83 Michał Górny <mgorny@g.o>
84 Type: Informational
85 Status: Accepted
86 Version: 1
87 Created: 2013-04-23
88 Last-Modified: 2018-09-26
89 Post-History: 2018-06-10, 2018-06-19, 2018-08-31
90 Content-Type: text/x-rst
91 ---
92
93
94 Status
95 ======
96
97 Accepted by the Gentoo Council on 2018-09-09 and approved by the
98 Gentoo Board of Trustees on 2018-09-15. Implementation in tools
99 (e.g., repoman) is pending.
100
101
102 Abstract
103 ========
104
105 This GLEP introduces a copyright and licensing policy for Gentoo
106 projects. It requires all contributions of software or documentation
107 to be released under a free license, and to be accompanied by a
108 certificate of origin.
109
110
111 Motivation
112 ==========
113
114 The copyright ownership of Gentoo materials is ambiguous due to
115 historical factors, and this GLEP attempts to improve the process
116 going forward.
117
118 In the beginning (2000 or earlier), the copyright header stated that
119 *Gentoo Technologies, Inc.* was the copyright holder, without any
120 formal paperwork. The formal assignment document was however only
121 introduced in early 2004. The assignment had many objectors (mostly
122 on the ``gentoo-core`` mailing list). The developer recruiting
123 procedures attempted to require signing of the document as a condition
124 for becoming a developer, but it was not applied to pre-existing
125 developers, or those that objected.
126
127 Later, the *Gentoo Foundation* was established, and copyrights were
128 formally transferred (including nullifying original developer
129 assignments to *Gentoo Technologies, Inc.*), and the copyright header
130 was updated. The formal assignment document text was updated in 2006,
131 but the formal assignment process had already been abandoned in
132 mid-2004.
133
134 Throughout this, the presence of copyright headers existed as a
135 policy, and continues to exist to this day. Some files also still
136 contain or have in the past contained additional copyright headers,
137 attributing ownership to other parties.
138
139 The policy to have copyright notices ascribing copyright ownership to
140 the Gentoo Foundation caused an issue when Gentoo developers forked
141 another project and hosted the fork on Gentoo infrastructure. To
142 comply with the previous policy the copyright notices were modified,
143 which caused concerns with the project the files were forked from.
144 Our previous policy completely neglected the possibility that Gentoo
145 might want to host files that were not created internally.
146
147 Finally, since the early days of Gentoo new ideas around copyright
148 licensing have become more popular, such as the FSFE's Fiduciary
149 License Agreement [#FLA]_, which takes a copyleft approach to
150 copyright licensing, while also better complying with copyright laws
151 in nations that have author's rights.
152
153 The goal here was to create a policy that was flexible enough to cover
154 forks and situations where Gentoo would not own the majority of the
155 copyright in a file.
156
157
158 Specification
159 =============
160
161 Purpose / Scope
162 ---------------
163
164 This policy documents how Gentoo contributors comply and document
165 copyright for any contributions made to Gentoo. Anyone committing
166 documentation or sources to any repository hosted on Gentoo
167 infrastructure or to any official Gentoo project (independently
168 of hosting) must comply with this policy. Unofficial Gentoo projects
169 are also recommended to use this policy.
170
171 Questions regarding this policy should be directed to the Trustees
172 or the ``gentoo-project`` mailing list. Any concerns over possible
173 copyright violations should be directed to the Trustees if they cannot
174 be worked out with the appropriate maintainer.
175
176
177 Licensing of Gentoo Projects
178 ----------------------------
179
180 Every Gentoo project must abide by the Gentoo Social Contract
181 [#SOCIAL-CONTRACT]_ and release its work under one or more of the
182 following:
183
184 a) The GNU General Public License, version 2 or later (GPL-2+)
185 [#GPL-2]_.
186
187 b) The Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License
188 (CC-BY-SA-4.0, only for documentation) [#CC-BY-SA-4.0]_.
189 Existing projects may also stay with CC-BY-SA-3.0 [#CC-BY-SA-3.0]_.
190
191 c) A license approved as GPL compatible by the Free Software
192 Foundation [#GPL-COMPAT]_.
193
194 Exceptions for other free software licenses will be granted by the
195 Gentoo Foundation on a case by case basis.
196
197 For easy reference, the license for each project should be documented
198 on the wiki page at [#PROJECTS]_.
199
200
201 Certificate of Origin
202 ---------------------
203
204 All commits to Gentoo project repositories shall be accompanied by a
205 certificate of origin. The purpose of the certificate is to declare
206 that the contribution can be modified and redistributed in accordance
207 with the project's license.
208
209 For commits made using a VCS, the committer shall certify agreement to
210 the Certificate of Origin by adding ``Signed-off-by: Name <e-mail>``
211 to the commit message as a separate line. The sign-off must contain
212 the committer's legal name as a natural person, i.e., the name that
213 would appear in a government issued document.
214
215 The following is the current Gentoo Certificate of Origin, revision 1:
216
217 By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:
218
219 1. The contribution was created in whole or in part by me, and I
220 have the right to submit it under the free software license
221 indicated in the file; or
222
223 2. The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best
224 of my knowledge, is covered under an appropriate free software
225 license, and I have the right under that license to submit that
226 work with modifications, whether created in whole or in part by
227 me, under the same free software license (unless I am permitted
228 to submit under a different license), as indicated in the file;
229 or
230
231 3. The contribution is a license text (or a file of similar nature),
232 and verbatim distribution is allowed; or
233
234 4. The contribution was provided directly to me by some other
235 person who certified 1., 2., 3., or 4., and I have not modified
236 it.
237
238 I understand and agree that this project and the contribution
239 are public and that a record of the contribution (including all
240 personal information I submit with it, including my sign-off) is
241 maintained indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with
242 this project or the free software license(s) involved.
243
244 The Gentoo Certificate of Origin is licensed under a Creative Commons
245 Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License [#CC-BY-SA-3.0]_.
246 It is based on the Linux Kernel DCO [#OSDL-DCO]_, released by Open
247 Source Development Labs, Inc. in 2005 under a CC-BY-SA-2.5 License.
248
249 Alternatively, and if it is applicable, committers can certify their
250 commits with the Linux Kernel DCO 1.1 [#DCO-1.1]_. This shall be
251 indicated by adding ``(DCO-1.1)`` at the end of the ``Signed-off-by``
252 line. Using the Gentoo Certificate of Origin is strongly preferred.
253
254
255 Copyright Attribution
256 ---------------------
257
258 All copyrightable files included in Gentoo projects must contain
259 appropriate copyright and license notices, as defined by this policy.
260 For files in textual format, these notices normally appear near the
261 top of the file. When technical limitations do not allow for text
262 notices in the file itself (e.g., for binary image file formats),
263 copyright and license can be stated in an accompanying text file in
264 the same directory.
265
266 A proper copyright notice reads::
267
268 Copyright YEARS MAIN-CONTRIBUTOR [OTHER-CONTRIBUTOR]... [and others]
269
270 It must list the main copyright holder, who is usually the original
271 author, or the contributor holding copyright to the largest portion
272 of the file. Additional copyright holders can be listed, but this is
273 normally not required. The "and others" text may be omitted if the
274 explicitly listed contributors hold copyright to the entire file.
275 In some jurisdictions, the copyright holder can also be a company or
276 other legal entity, and therefore be different from the original
277 author.
278
279 Anyone finding a file out of compliance should file a bug against the
280 associated project/package providing as much information as possible.
281 Files that are not brought into compliance within 60 days or upon a
282 request for removal by a aggrieved copyright holder will be removed.
283 Any concerns not addressed by a maintainer can be appealed to the
284 Trustees.
285
286
287 Simplified Attribution
288 ----------------------
289
290 Alternatively, projects are welcome to use a simplified form of the
291 copyright notice, which reads::
292
293 Copyright YEARS Gentoo Authors
294
295 Projects using this scheme must track authorship in a VCS, unless they
296 list all authors of copyrightable contributions in an ``AUTHORS`` file.
297
298
299 Rationale
300 =========
301
302 Policy
303 ------
304
305 This document aims to provide a single consistent copyright policy for
306 all Gentoo projects. It is explicitly enforced for all official Gentoo
307 projects in order to protect the interests of Gentoo as a whole,
308 including its contributors, developers and users. Additionally, it is
309 enforced for all other projects hosted on Gentoo infrastructure in order
310 to protect the Gentoo infrastructure owners and improve consistency.
311
312 The copyright model is built on the DCO model used by the Linux kernel
313 and requires all contributors to certify the legitimacy of their
314 contributions. This also requires that they use their real name for
315 signing; an anonymous certification or one under a pseudonym would not
316 mean anything. This policy is derived from the Linux project's policy
317 [#SUBMITTING-PATCHES]_.
318
319 In the future, a second stage of this policy may use a combination of
320 the DCO model and an FLA model [#FLA]_ as it is used by different open
321 source projects. Contributors would be able to freely choose whether
322 they sign the FLA document or not.
323
324
325 Licensing of Projects
326 ---------------------
327
328 The Social Contract mentions GPL-2 and CC-BY-SA-2.0, both with the
329 option to use them in a later version ("at our discretion"). In order
330 to facilitate interchange of software between different projects, we
331 aim for uniformity of their licensing. Therefore, items a) and b)
332 explicitly recommend the use of GPL-2+ and CC-BY-SA-4.0. The latter
333 is restricted to be used for documentation, because Creative Commons
334 themselves recommend against using their licenses for software
335 [#CC-SOFTWARE]_.
336
337 Other GPL-compatible free software licenses that are not explicitly
338 listed are allowed by item c). This covers cases where compatibility
339 to licenses used by upstream projects is necessary. (For example,
340 the Gentoo BSD project may want to use the 2-clause or 3-clause BSD
341 license).
342
343 By default, GPL-incompatible licenses (e.g., the CDDL) are not
344 allowed, because their use would hinder interchange of code between
345 Gentoo projects. However, the Foundation can grant exceptions to
346 this, as long as the license in question is a free software or open
347 source license.
348
349
350 Changes to the Certificate of Origin
351 ------------------------------------
352
353 The Gentoo Certificate of Origin rev. 1 has been based on Linux Kernel
354 DCO 1.1 [#OSDL-DCO]_. It features the following modifications from
355 the original:
356
357 i. The enumeration has been modified to use numeric points.
358
359 ii. Additional point 3. has been inserted:
360
361 3. The contribution is a license text (or a file of similar
362 nature), and verbatim distribution is allowed; or
363
364 iii. The original point (c) has shifted to become point 4., and has
365 been updated to account for the additional point 3.
366
367 iv. The original point (d) has been transformed into a stand-alone
368 paragraph following the enumeration.
369
370 v. The term "open source" has been replaced by "free software"
371 throughout.
372
373 The new point was deemed necessary to allow committing license files
374 into the Gentoo repository, since those files usually do not permit
375 modification. It has been established that adding a clear provision
376 for this case is better than excluding those commits from compliance
377 with the Certificate of Origin. Debian was facing a similar problem
378 [#DEBIAN-LICENSE]_.
379
380 The update of point (c) was necessary to allow the new clause being
381 certified by the person providing the contribution.
382
383 The term "free software" is used for consistency with the language
384 of the Gentoo Social Contract [#SOCIAL-CONTRACT]_.
385
386 The remaining changes were merely editorial. The original point (d)
387 is not part of the *or* statement joining the other points, so keeping
388 it in a paragraph separate from the enumeration is more appropriate.
389
390 Addition of another point for public domain material was also
391 considered. However, it is preferred if all contributions carry
392 an explicit license notice that allows their certification under
393 point 1. or 2. If necessary, license tools like Creative Commons
394 CC0 [#CC0-1.0]_ or Public Domain Mark [#CC-PDM-1.0]_ can be used.
395
396
397 Copyright Notice
398 ----------------
399
400 Especially for ebuild repositories, constantly keeping track of the
401 main copyright holder of any file would be rather inconvenient and
402 tedious. Therefore, projects are free to use either a traditional
403 copyright notice listing the individual author(s), or a simplified
404 notice with an attribution to the "Gentoo Authors". The latter
405 resembles the scheme used by the Chromium project [#CHROMIUM]_.
406
407
408 Acknowledgements
409 ================
410
411 Many people have participated in invaluable discussions on this GLEP.
412 In particular, the authors would like to thank David Abbott,
413 Roy Bamford, Kristian Fiskerstrand, Andreas K. Hüttel, Manuel Rüger,
414 Matija Šuklje, Matthew Thode, and Alec Warner for their input.
415
416
417 References
418 ==========
419
420 .. [#SOCIAL-CONTRACT] Gentoo Social Contract,
421 https://www.gentoo.org/get-started/philosophy/social-contract.html
422
423 .. [#GPL-2] GNU General Public License, version 2 or later,
424 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
425
426 .. [#CC-BY-SA-4.0] Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
427 International License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
428
429 .. [#CC-BY-SA-3.0] Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
430 Unported License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
431
432 .. [#GPL-COMPAT] GPL-compatible free software licenses,
433 https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses
434
435 .. [#PROJECTS] Licensing of Gentoo projects,
436 https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Licenses/Licensing_of_Gentoo_projects
437
438 .. [#OSDL-DCO] Open Source Development Labs, Inc.,
439 Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1,
440 https://web.archive.org/web/20060524185355/http://www.osdlab.org/newsroom/press_releases/2004/2004_05_24_dco.html
441
442 .. [#DCO-1.1] Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1,
443 https://developercertificate.org/
444
445 .. [#FLA] FSFE Legal: Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA),
446 https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/fla.en.html
447
448 .. [#SUBMITTING-PATCHES] Submitting patches: the essential guide to
449 getting your code into the kernel,
450 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst?h=v4.18#n460
451 https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=af45f32d25cc1e374184675eadc9f740221d8392
452
453 .. [#CC-SOFTWARE] Can I apply a Creative Commons license to software?
454 https://creativecommons.org/faq/#can-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-software
455
456 .. [#DEBIAN-LICENSE] [debian-legal] License of the GPL license,
457 https://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2018/04/msg00006.html
458
459 .. [#CC0-1.0] Creative Commons: CC0 1.0 Universal,
460 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
461
462 .. [#CC-PDM-1.0] Creative Commons: Public Domain Mark 1.0,
463 https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/
464
465 .. [#CHROMIUM] Chromium: Contributing Code,
466 https://www.chromium.org/developers/contributing-code#TOC-Legal-stuff
467
468
469 Copyright
470 =========
471
472 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0
473 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
474 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.

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