Re: [gentoo-project] [RFC] GLEP 76: Copyright Policy [v4]

[kuzetsa]

On 09/27/2018 10:32 AM, Michał Górny wrote:
> On Thu, 2018-09-27 at 09:52 -0400, NP-Hardass wrote:
>> On 09/27/2018 08:42 AM, Rich Freeman wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2018 at 8:00 AM NP-Hardass <NP-Hardass@g.o> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 09/26/2018 03:25 PM, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
>>>>> Here is another small update of the copyright GLEP, resulting from a
>>>>> recent discussion on IRC. This is not a change of policy, but merely
>>>>> a clarification of the real name requirement:
>>>>>
>>>>> - The Signed-off-by line must contain the name of a natural person.
>>>>>
>>>>> - A copyright holder can be a legal entity (e.g., a company) in some
>>>>>   jurisdictions.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> IANAL, but as per the Berne Convention, anonymous and pseudonymous works
>>>> are granted copyright protection.  What's the rationale behind mandating
>>>> a real name?
>>>
>>> The DCO/GCO have nothing to do with obtaining copyright protection.
>>> This is always present if not waived.
>>>
>>> It is about showing due diligence in the event somebody claims that
>>> somebody ripped off their work and contributed it to Gentoo without
>>> authorization.
>>>
>>> If your real name is attached to a statement saying that you didn't
>>> steal the work, and you did steal the work, then they can go after you
>>> as well as Gentoo.  That deters contributing stuff without checking on
>>> its legality.  That same deterrence also helps show good faith on
>>> Gentoo's part.  This is why organizations generally pursue these
>>> policies.
>>>
>>> If somebody violates a copyright anonymously, then they have no skin
>>> in the game.  They can just disappear if anything bad happens.  If a
>>> contributor isn't willing to stake their own money and reputation on
>>> the statement that something is legal to contribute, then why should
>>> Gentoo assume that they've put a lot of effort into the accuracy of
>>> that statement?
>>>
>>
>> And, AFAICT, this only applies to the Signed-off-by line (the
>> committer).  The author may be anonymous or pseudonymous... So, your
>> statement is that people making commits to Gentoo must have real
>> names... and be public.  This doesn't have any impact on whether the
>> source of the code is legit, just gives you a point of blame for who
>> actually committed it (which, TBH, doesn't mean much).  I can say John
>> Doe committed code that wasn't legal.  But i_steal_code_1337 authored
>> it... I guess we know not to accept code from him... or do we... since
>> we have no way of vetting authors.  Making the restriction of names for
>> committers and not authors, IMO, has no weight.  Requiring that all
>> contributions be from real named sources is a pretty drastic change, and
>> not what is being proposed, TTBOMK.
>>
>> But that's really besides the point... The current status quo (as is the
>> case with me) is that a committer may be pseudonymous under the
>> condition that the Foundation have that individual's name in the event
>> of a copyright issue. So, I still don't understand how forcing everyone
>> to publicly use a real name achieves something that we aren't currently
>> achieving...  Is that incorrect?
>>
>
> Gentoo publishes a number of open source projects.  The code of those
> projects is used beyond Gentoo and beyond Gentoo Foundation.  Therefore,
> it is natural that we need all the copyright assessments and agreements
> to be *public* and not hidden behind some opaque Foundation which may or
> may not actually have the data (how can a regular Gentoo user be sure of
> that?), and which may or may not choose to actually disclose it.
>
> As for the case with you, I think the 'status quo' is more complex but
> that's beside the point, and I don't think it would be helpful to anyone
> expanding on that.
>

for what it's worth, when I originally realized I didn't need to author
commits using my legal name I came to that decision after a discussion
with NP-Hardass. Just sayin'