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On Thu, 11 Oct 2018 19:29:57 +0200 Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
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> >>>>> On Thu, 11 Oct 2018, Andrew Savchenko wrote: |
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> |
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> > On Wed, 10 Oct 2018 09:43:52 +0200 Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
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> >> The new copyright policy (GLEP 76) leaves it to projects to decide |
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> >> whether they use the long form or the simplified form of the copyright |
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> >> attribution. I would like to ask the council to decide that the |
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> >> simplified attribution [1] shall be used for ebuilds in the Gentoo |
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> >> repository. |
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> |
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> > I'd like to voice strongly against this motion. |
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> |
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> > Rationale: |
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> |
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> > - We have out of the Gentoo repository ebuilds which may be |
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> > incorporated in the main repository and are licensed properly but |
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> > an author requires his copyright in the first line to be preserved. |
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> |
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> The author's copyright will be preserved, regardless if he is listed in |
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> a copyright line or not. It would even be preserved if there wasn't any |
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> copyright notice at all. |
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|
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Okay, I'll rephrase more precise: author has |
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"Copyright years John Doe" |
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as the first line and demands this to be preserved. |
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|
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I had cases like this years ago (e.g. I was unable to use ebuilds |
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from an overlay in the main tree because the author refused the |
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first line to be changed to "Gentoo Foundation"). And this problem |
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is present now with other people. |
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|
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> The sole purpose of having a copyright notice is to protect us against |
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> an "innocent infringement" defense under U.S. law. It really doesn't |
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> matter much who is listed there (so we can list "Gentoo Authors" which |
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> isn't even a legal entity), as long as we have a notice at all. |
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|
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It does matter, at least in some other countries (non-US). Anyway I |
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doubt that even in US committer has right to change copyright |
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notice without author's approval. |
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|
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> > GPL-2 allows us to use such ebuilds, but our past copyright policy |
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> > mandating "Gentoo Foundation" doesn't, as well as proposed motion |
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> > which mandates "Gentoo Authors" instead of the list of authors |
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> > including main author if they require so. |
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> |
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> It is virtually impossible to account for all authors of an ebuild, |
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|
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Why? We have git log. And we have "and others" clause to account |
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for trivial changes, e.g. if person making some mass-package |
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trivial change, this may go to "and others". |
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|
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> and listing "Gentoo Authors" is only done because of practical |
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> considerations (as I had outlined in the rationale). Also, please don't |
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> confuse the copyright notice with an attribution of authorship. |
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> The latter is achieved by the Git (or another VCS) commit information. |
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> Again, this is already outlined in GLEP 76: "Projects using this scheme |
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> [namely, 'Gentoo Authors'] must track authorship in a VCS". |
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|
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You are correct, but this doesn't give the right for commiter to |
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remove explicit "Copyright years John Doe" line. If you are |
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confident it does, please cite an appropriate law. |
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|
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> > - GLEP 76 already did significant harm to our community by |
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> > outlawing current anonymous or pseudonymous contributions. Moreover |
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> > we have people who want to join community, but keep their identity |
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> > hidden. This is understandable, especially for security or privacy |
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> > oriented software. The harm should go no further. We have a lot of |
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> > talks how we need more developers, but what we are doing in many |
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> > steps including GLEP 76 is exactly the opposite: we are creating |
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> > additional barriers due to vague and bureaucratic reasons. |
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> |
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> How is that relevant for the proposal at hand? |
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|
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Because situation is bad now and the motion makes it even worse. |
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|
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> > Of course if authors wants to use "Gentoo Authors" this should be |
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> > allowed, especially for automatic migration from the "Gentoo |
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> > Foundation" line. But we must preserve the right to use explicit |
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> > list of authors (including "and others" if necessary) if a |
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> > maintainer wants so. |
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> |
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> Exactly. The aim of the "simplified attribution" policy is to simplify |
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> modification of ebuilds, because contributors (whether Gentoo developers |
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> or users) shouldn't have to think about the copyright line. |
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> |
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> The purpose of the proposal explicitly is *not* to stop anybody from |
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> adding an ebuild with a preexisting copyright notice. However, we should |
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> make it clear that we strongly prefer the simplified form for ebuilds in |
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> the Gentoo repository, entirely for practical reasons. |
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|
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The way I read it it moves back to the old "Gentoo Foundation" |
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policy with "Gentoo Foundation" replaced by "Gentoo Authors", which |
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will not allow to commit ebuilds without "Gentoo Authors" in the |
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first line. |
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|
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Best regards, |
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Andrew Savchenko |