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

[Alec Warner]

On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 7:02 AM Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote:

> >>>>> On Sat, 24 Nov 2018, Alec Warner wrote:
>
> > I think it is an entirely reasonable position to do the following:
> >  - Not accept the SEI notices because we do not understand the grounds on
> > which they are added.
> >  - Ask SEI for a rationale for what the notices are meant to convey, so
> we
> > can decide if we can support whatever that use case is; maybe its
> something
> > we didn't consider in the GLEP.
>
> Hm, shall we make this an agenda item for the next Council meeting?
>

I think if you will do nothing, developers will continue to add SEI
notices. If you don't want them to do that (and my understanding from
talking to the council is many do not want the notices) then I believe
action is necessary to block the notices[0]. I'm happy to add something to
the agenda.


>
> > I don't think its reasonable to say they are mean shitheads; because the
> > fact is we don't know what they want to accomplish with the notices.
> > My concern is that they may later provide a reasonable use case for the
> > notices and the council will just say 'well that use case is stupid
> because
> > Sony is stupid'; because that is the message many members of the council
> > are currently communicating. Why would Sony even bother if the narrative
> is
> > the Council won't listen anyway? It looks like a waste of their time.
>
> In the first place, they should have raised their concerns while GLEP 76
> was in the making, not after it went through the approval process with
> Council and Trustees. Our proposed policy was posted on the mailing list
> for review, even with several iterations. Plus, they were happy with a
> single line notice before, so not accepting it any longer looks like an
> arbitrary move.
>

I agree that having the company participate earlier in the process would
have improved things and this is something we should encourage. I'm not
sure its necessary to present the GLEP as some kind of immutable entity
though; we have a process to amend it and whatnot. However, I also want to
give the GLEP authors a break (I know many of you have been working on this
GLEP for more than a year) and this is why my intent is to put us in a
position where its up to Sony (and other companies) to drive the changes
they want. I think blocking the contributions is the stick to make that
happen.

-A

[0] There was another argument raised that we could accept the ebuilds with
the SEI Copyright notice at the top, then replace it later with "Gentoo
Authors and others" once edited by a non SEI employee. This wasn't
something I was keen on as a board member; but I think it comes back to
"Why exactly does Sony want the notices and can we meet those obligations
some other way."


> > I think the above proposal puts the ball clearly in SEI's court; if they
> > want the notices accepted they can provide a memo detailing why. If they
> > don't care, they can drop the notices or stop committing.
>
+1
>
> Ulrich
>