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On 09/29/2018 03:46 AM, Ulrich Mueller wrote: |
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>>>>>> On Fri, 28 Sep 2018, kuzetsa wrote: |
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> |
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>> Summary / emphasis: the copyright protection for a |
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>> legal entity or pseudonymous author (copyright holder) |
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>> may also have validity outside the copyright holder or |
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>> author's jurisdiction under the berne convention. |
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> |
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> A work is protected by copyright even if it doesn't carry any copyright |
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> notice at all. Our policy requires a notice mainly to protect us against |
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> a possible "innocent infringement" defense under U.S. law: |
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> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_notice#Reasons_to_include_an_optional_copyright_notice |
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> |
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> IANAL, but as I understand it, the requirements for the name that |
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> appears in a copyright notice are rather lax, and your quote from the |
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> Berne convention seems to confirm that. Also there is nothing in the |
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> GLEP's wording that would forbid the use of a pseudonym in the copyright |
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> notice, as long as it will qualify as an identifier of the copyright |
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> holder. (The Signed-off-by line is a different issue, though.) |
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> |
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> Ulrich |
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> |
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|
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"For commits made using a VCS, the committer shall certify agreement to |
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the Certificate of Origin by adding Signed-off-by: Name <e-mail> to the |
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commit message as a separate line. Committers must use their real name, |
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i.e., the name that would appear in an official document like a passport." |
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|
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"By making a contribution to this project, I certify that: |
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[...] |
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The contribution was provided directly to me by some other person who |
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certified 1., 2., 3., or 4., and I have not modified it." |
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|
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Which means a contribution of pseudonymous copywritten code cannot be |
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made. The person making the commit cannot sign off on it unless the |
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author signs off on it, and the author cannot sign off on it because |
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that requires that the author not be pseudonymous. |
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|
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UNLESS you think this falls under #2: |
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"The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my |
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knowledge, is covered under an appropriate free software license, and I |
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have the right under that license to submit that work with |
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modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same |
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free software license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different |
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license), as indicated in the file; or" |
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Which, as written, means that the committer must make a modifications to |
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the pseudonymous work to qualify as "[FOSS licensed and] created in |
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whole or in part by me." |
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The premise of which is that pseudonymous contributions aren't allowed |
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unless the author submits it as a patch, not using a VCS (as |
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contributions via VCS must use the Certificate of Origin), and the |
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committer makes some trivial modification to them, and then, by magic, |
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we avoid requirements for real names. |
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|
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Honestly, the whole thing comes across as a massive double |
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standard/loophole with no real purpose behind it. If pseudonymous code |
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is to be accepted for the sake of copyright, then how does one make a |
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pseudonymous contribution? If one cannot make a pseudonymous |
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contribution, then we should be stating that explicitly. |
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|
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[Quoted from elsewhere for the sake of reducing ML spam] |
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> "Not sure how all that is relevant for the v4 update. The real name |
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> was already required in v3, which has been accepted by both Council |
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> and Trustees. |
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|
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> v4 is merely a clarification that rules for copyright notice (where a |
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> legal entity can be listed) and sign-off (which must be by a natural |
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> person) are different." |
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|
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TBH, just because this criticism is being levied at the time of v4 |
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doesn't mean that the passing of v3 was without issue. |
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|
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-- |
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NP-Hardass |