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On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 11:47:39 -0800 |
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Patrick McLean <chutzpah@g.o> wrote: |
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|
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> On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 09:24:08 +0100 |
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> Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> > >>>>> On Wed, 14 Nov 2018, William Hubbs wrote: |
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> > |
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> > > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 06:17:17PM -0800, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> > >> So, the purpose of allowing specific copyright holders to be |
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> > >> named was to cover cases where we're forking foreign code, not to |
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> > >> basically introduce a variant on the BSD advertising clause. IMO |
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> > >> people who are only willing to contribute FOSS if their name gets |
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> > >> put in a prominent location might do better to contribute |
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> > >> elsewhere. |
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> > |
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> > +1000 |
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> > |
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> > Maybe the policy for the Gentoo repository should just say that, |
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> > namely that traditional copyright notices are only allowed for |
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> > imported foreign code. Anything committed directly to the repository |
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> > and any update of an existing file would be required to carry the |
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> > simplified "Gentoo Authors" copyright notice, without any exceptions |
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> > allowed. |
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> |
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> So if SIE employees set up an official overlay, publish there first |
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> and then "import" them to the tree it would pass that metric. That |
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> seems like a silly extra step. |
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> |
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> > |
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> > > Do you feel this way about corporations as well? Do you think the |
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> > > Linux kernel maintainers should go and rip out all copyright |
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> > > notices other than Linus Torvalds and maybe the Linux |
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> > > Foundation? |
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> > |
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> > Why would corporations be different from individual authors? Under |
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> > the legislation here, corporations cannot even hold copyright (or |
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> > rather, Urheberrecht) of a work. |
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> |
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> AFAIK that is not common in legal systems, certainly in the US (where |
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> the Gentoo Foundation is based) copyrights can be held by any legal |
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> entity, including a corporation or a nonprofit. |
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> |
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> > >> The purpose of a copyright notice is to declare that the file is |
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> > >> copyrighted, and that is it. |
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> |
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> It is also to declare who owns the copyright, if it is to declare |
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> simply that is is copyrighted, then one could add packages with the |
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> text "Copyright 1999-2018" without any owner at all. |
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> |
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> > >> It isn't a comprehensive list of everybody who holds a copyright |
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> > >> on the file. |
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> > >> |
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> |
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> No it's not meant to be, it's a list of entities who hold copyright on |
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> a file and want to be listed, this is different. I am not aware of any |
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> open source project with a policy against copyright headers, or |
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> different headers other than ones with copyright attribution. If you |
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> are aware of such a project, please link the policy. |
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> |
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> > >> It isn't a revision history. |
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> |
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> And it is not meant to be. |
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> |
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> > >> But, if you had to have multiple lines, then just wrap the |
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> > >> existing notice. Don't turn it into some kind of revision |
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> > >> history. Just list one year range and whatever list of entities |
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> > >> you feel compelled to list. That is the proper way to do a |
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> > >> notice. |
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> > |
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> > > No sir, it isn't. |
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> > |
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> > > Look anywhere outside the Gentoo tree. For that matter, take the |
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> > > Linux kernel, or even in the systemd source, there are several |
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> > > places with multiple copyright notices in them. |
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> > |
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> > Are these the only arguments you have? |
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> > |
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> > To say it again, ebuilds have a copyright notice for exactly two |
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> > reasons: |
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> > |
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> > - to protect us against the "innocent infringement" defense under |
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> > U.S. law, and |
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> > |
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> > - because the GPL-2 requires in section 1 to "appropriately publish |
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> > on each copy an appropriate copyright notice". |
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> > |
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> > For both of these, it is irrelevant what the precise contents of the |
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> > notice is. If you made a significant contribution to the file, then |
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> > you can claim copyright for it, even if there is no copyright notice |
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> > at all, of if you aren't mentioned in it. |
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> > |
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> > IANAL, but I think the case for being listed there explicitly is |
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> > very weak. |
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> |
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> Is accepting contributions form entities that require it a good |
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> argument? Is this really worth losing valuable contributions over? |
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> |
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> Please explain why this is a major issue worth this level of |
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> discussion? Are a few lines at the top of the ebuild that can be |
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> easily ignored or hidden by editors such a huge issue that you do not |
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> want to accept any contributions that include it? Is this worth losing |
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> developers and contributions over? |
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|
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I think one of the fundamental questions we have to ask ourselves is |
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whether we want to encourage or discourage companies from allowing |
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their employees to contribute to Gentoo on work time. |
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|
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A lot of developers have left the project because they no longer had |
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the free time to contribute, having paid contributors can help |
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drastically with this, I don't understand why we would want to |
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discourage this. Is avoiding a few extra lines (or characters in |
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existing lines) in some small percentage of ebuilds worth losing the |
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contributions from developers working on Gentoo on work time? |