Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: copyright attribution clarifications

[Patrick McLean]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:24:08 +0100
Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:

> >>>>> On Wed, 14 Nov 2018, William Hubbs wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 06:17:17PM -0800, Rich Freeman wrote:
> >> So, the purpose of allowing specific copyright holders to be named
> >> was to cover cases where we're forking foreign code, not to
> >> basically introduce a variant on the BSD advertising clause. IMO
> >> people who are only willing to contribute FOSS if their name gets
> >> put in a prominent location might do better to contribute
> >> elsewhere.
>
> +1000
>
> Maybe the policy for the Gentoo repository should just say that,
> namely that traditional copyright notices are only allowed for
> imported foreign code. Anything committed directly to the repository
> and any update of an existing file would be required to carry the
> simplified "Gentoo Authors" copyright notice, without any exceptions
> allowed.

So if SIE employees set up an official overlay, publish there first and
then "import" them to the tree it would pass that metric. That seems
like a silly extra step.

>
> > Do you feel this way about corporations as well? Do you think the
> > Linux kernel maintainers should go and rip out all copyright notices
> > other than Linus Torvalds and maybe the Linux Foundation?
>
> Why would corporations be different from individual authors? Under the
> legislation here, corporations cannot even hold copyright (or rather,
> Urheberrecht) of a work.

AFAIK that is not common in legal systems, certainly in the US (where
the Gentoo Foundation is based) copyrights can be held by any legal
entity, including a corporation or a nonprofit.

> >> The purpose of a copyright notice is to declare that the file is
> >> copyrighted, and that is it.

It is also to declare who owns the copyright, if it is to declare
simply that is is copyrighted, then one could add packages with the
text "Copyright 1999-2018" without any owner at all.

> >> It isn't a comprehensive list of everybody who holds a copyright on
> >> the file.
> >>

No it's not meant to be, it's a list of entities who hold copyright on
a file and want to be listed, this is different. I am not aware of any
open source project with a policy against copyright headers, or
different headers other than ones with copyright attribution. If you
are aware of such a project, please link the policy.

> >> It isn't a revision history.

And it is not meant to be.

> >> But, if you had to have multiple lines, then just wrap the existing
> >> notice.  Don't turn it into some kind of revision history.  Just
> >> list one year range and whatever list of entities you feel
> >> compelled to list.  That is the proper way to do a notice.
>
> > No sir, it isn't.
>
> > Look anywhere outside the Gentoo tree. For that matter, take the
> > Linux kernel, or even in the systemd source, there are several
> > places with multiple copyright notices in them.
>
> Are these the only arguments you have?
>
> To say it again, ebuilds have a copyright notice for exactly two
> reasons:
>
> - to protect us against the "innocent infringement" defense under
> U.S. law, and
>
> - because the GPL-2 requires in section 1 to "appropriately publish
> on each copy an appropriate copyright notice".
>
> For both of these, it is irrelevant what the precise contents of the
> notice is. If you made a significant contribution to the file, then
> you can claim copyright for it, even if there is no copyright notice
> at all, of if you aren't mentioned in it.
>
> IANAL, but I think the case for being listed there explicitly is very
> weak.

Is accepting contributions form entities that require it a good
argument? Is this really worth losing valuable contributions over?

Please explain why this is a major issue worth this level of
discussion? Are a few lines at the top of the ebuild that can be easily
ignored or hidden by editors such a huge issue that you do not want to
accept any contributions that include it? Is this worth losing
developers and contributions over?