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

[Rich Freeman]

On Fri, Nov 23, 2018 at 3:23 PM Sarah White <kuzetsa@××××××××××.ovh> wrote:
>
> It depends. It is not proper to remove an otherwise valid
> copyright notice (though it's likely proper / "good enough"
> if a simplified attribution of the form "gentoo authors"
> is used instead - that's fine on an opt-in basis)
>

IMO it is legal even if it isn't opt-in.  So, legally we could always
just let contributors tack their employer's name on the one-liner and
then just trim it back off when they're not looking.  That probably
won't make us any friends, but as far as I can tell nobody has ever
successfully sued somebody for doing this when the work was
distributed under the GPL.

> What's the purpose of removing or discouraging
> something which doesn't harm gentoo

It creates clutter in files that are otherwise very concise, so it
does cause a form of harm.

I get that lawyers like imposing restrictions on employees in their
companies to look like they're doing something.  That doesn't mean
that we have to humor them.  It is unfortunate that they have their
employees at a disadvantage, but we can't control the relationships
our contributors get into.

What if a company requires that we put their logo on our sponsors page
for one of their employees to contribute even a single line of code
off-hours?  Sure, the harm of honoring that policy also is hard to
quantify, but it is clearly there, as it diminishes the value of being
recognized as a sponsor (and our existing sponsors give us more than
that - we try to have internal guidelines for what qualifies so that
the honor isn't cheapened).

As far as I'm aware, the number of contributors who are even impacted
by this policy is one.  I certainly do feel bad about the situation
they are in, but unfortunately that is the nature of employee
relationships in the US.  We have many people who are paid to
contribute to Gentoo who do not have this restriction.  As far as I
can tell, the people responsible for imposing the restriction in this
case aren't interested in making a case for why they feel it is
necessary.

-- 
Rich