[gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Anthony Gorecki]

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An interesting idea presented itself this evening after listening to a 
description in #gentoo-dev of a minor author-developer conflict regarding 
giving credit to the original author of an ebuild, which had been heavily 
rewritten by one of the developers: 

Having read Gentoo's copyright policies and knowing that 
they're /unquestioningly/ followed, I should submit an ebuild (being not 
bound by a copyright assignment agreement) and then claim rights on it. 
Perhaps if I were to initiate litigation against Gentoo, alleging that it was 
falsely claiming copyright ownership over my work, the legal action would 
facilitate the developers into abiding by their own copyright assignment 
policies.

http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/copyright/


Quite frankly, I don't believe it's very likely that a legal entity will 
initiate such litigation; unfortunately, in the rare event that litigation 
did occur, it could cause a legal mess that would likely end in an 
undesirable fashion. There are a number of factors to consider here. The 
below assume that the submitting user has not signed a CAA:

First, licensing: 
If a user submitted an ebuild containing the GPL licensing notice, Gentoo 
could rightfully use and modify the ebuild as it required, distributing it as 
needed. On the other hand, if a developer actually committed an ebuild 
without that licensing statement (or added it to the file on their own accord 
prior to it being committed), Gentoo would have absolutely no right to use, 
modify or distribute such a work. In such circumstances, the author could 
order the ebuild to be removed from the tree. One ebuild may not be of great 
importance, however imagine if it was thirty ebuilds, or perhaps more. What 
would happen if it were hundreds of ebuilds?

Second, ownership:
Assuming that a contributed ebuild is submitted with an enclosed GPL licensing 
"stamp," normal developer-use (thereby implying modification and 
distribution) of the file could occur-- I would surmise that this is a vastly 
more common occurrence than the former example. While it has less potential 
to impact the end-users of Gentoo, the author of such an ebuild could force 
Gentoo to cease claiming ownership of the file in the standard, "Copyright X 
Gentoo Foundation," notice. Ultimately, this might force the ebuild to be 
modified to give proper credit, which is not an enormously difficult issue 
for a developer to correct. 

What does concern me, however, is that such contributions might be working 
themselves into works other than the ebuilds, being Gentoo's made-in-house 
software, written articles and project resources. Again, the author might be 
able to force Gentoo to cease claiming ownership over non-assigned work, 
though more importantly, this limits _Gentoo's_ ability to enforce the 
integrity of their work. 

If a user were to begin illegally using a derivative version of Portage in 
violation of Gentoo's copyrights (whether it be licensing violations or 
otherwise), the potential for foreign code existence suddenly becomes 
critical to the defense of the software. I can only imagine the ease at which 
a defense attorney could argue to a court that Gentoo only haphazardly 
requires copyright assignment from its contributors, and is therefore 
unaccountable for its software, or portions thereof-- how they would need to 
prove that each and every single line of code was under their ownership. It 
may very well be that some sections of code could be found unaccountable, 
depriving Gentoo of its party interest in such segments.

In this way, the Linux kernel is open to abuse. As IBM is teaching SCO, 
portions of code that you own cannot be illegally used under terms contrary 
to that of the license under which they are released. Unfortunately, IBM can 
only claim rights to and defend the code that it personally contributes. For 
all of the other code, each individual contributor is responsible for 
defending their work against abuse, which is the reason that some projects 
opt to require copyright assignment to a single entity in a collaborative, 
open-source development environment. 

Arguing whether it's appropriate to assign copyrights is not within the scope 
of this message, but if Gentoo is planning to continue under the mandate of 
requiring contributors to assign copyrights, then there has to be no 
acceptance for not following that rule. Either you assign copyrights 
religiously, always and under every possible set of circumstances pending 
death by infringement, FUD and the HURD people, or you don't assign 
copyrights at all. 

My personal belief is that copyright assignment is not necessary for ebuilds, 
as they have a short shelf-life and are relatively trivial to replace if a 
problem arises. The written works, software and all other project material, 
in contrast, deserve nothing less than the uncompromised and genuine legal 
protection that would be available through a copyright assignment policy that 
was followed with respect by the developers and contributors.

Heated flames and constructive discussion are welcome.


-- 
Anthony Gorecki
Ectro-Linux Foundation

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[gentoo-dev] gcc-4.0.0_alpha20050213 fails

[Andres Järv]

The failing can be witnessed here:
http://www.rrg.edu.ee/~andres77/gcc-error.png

Here's my emerge info just in case:

Portage 2.0.51-r15 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-4.0.0-alpha20050130,
glibc-2.3 .4.20050125-r0, 2.6.11-rc4-love1 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.11-rc4-love1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) processor
Gentoo Base System version 1.6.9
Python:              dev-lang/python-2.3.5 [2.3.5 (#1, Feb 18 2005, 17:23:13)]
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r6
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.4
sys-devel/binutils:  2.15.92.0.2-r3
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.10-r4
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.8.1-r2
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -O2 -fPIC -DPIC"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.3/env
/usr/kde/3.3/share /config /usr/kde/3.3/shutdown
/usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/lib/
mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon-tbird -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -O2 -fPIC -DPIC"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoaddcvs autoconfig candy ccache distlocks nodoc noinfo
sandbox sfpe rms"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.estpak.ee/gentoo"
LANG="en_US.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--sort-common"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/bmg-main"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowex X alsa apm avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzlib cdr
crypt cups d ivx4linux encode foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gnutls gpm gtk
gtk2 hal imagemagick i mlib imlib2 jabber jpeg ldap libg++ libwww
mikmod mmx motif mozilla mp3 mpeg msn  ncurses nls nptl nptlonly
nvidia oggvorbis opengl pam pdflib perl pic png pytho n quicktime
readline sdl slang ssl svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype unicode xml2 xp
rint xv xvid zlib"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LC_ALL


It fails in the same spot with the latest ~x86 gcc too (3.4.3).
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] gcc-4.0.0_alpha20050213 fails

[Stephen P. Becker]

First of all, this is the wrong place to report bugs.  Second of all, 
I'm pretty sure we don't officially support gcc 4.0 yet, so what you see 
is what you get.

Steve

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Re: [gentoo-dev] gcc-4.0.0_alpha20050213 fails

[Andres Järv]

I'm not expecting any support. I just thought that maybe some
developer would like to know this and I didn't want to trash b.g.o
with this.
--
gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-dev] gcc-4.0.0_alpha20050213 fails

[Stephen P. Becker]

Andres Järv wrote:
> I'm not expecting any support. I just thought that maybe some
> developer would like to know this and I didn't want to trash b.g.o
> with this.

Well, I fail to see how using bugzilla for its intended purpose 
"trashes" it in any way. ;)

Steve
--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Jon Portnoy]

On Sat, Feb 26, 2005 at 05:02:06AM -0800, Anthony Gorecki wrote:
> 
> Heated flames and constructive discussion are welcome.
> 
> 

How about we just realize that ebuilds aren't really copyrightable 
content to begin with most of the time, call it quits, pull the 
copyright notices, and be done with the whole thing?

That'd make me a happy guy.

-- 
Jon Portnoy
avenj/irc.freenode.net
--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Joshua Brindle]

On Sun, 2005-02-27 at 07:35 -0500, Jon Portnoy wrote:
> 
> 
> How about we just realize that ebuilds aren't really copyrightable 
> content to begin with most of the time, call it quits, pull the 
> copyright notices, and be done with the whole thing?
> 
> That'd make me a happy guy.

I second.

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 07:35:47 -0500 Jon Portnoy <avenj@gentoo.org> wrote:
| On Sat, Feb 26, 2005 at 05:02:06AM -0800, Anthony Gorecki wrote:
| > 
| > Heated flames and constructive discussion are welcome.
| 
| How about we just realize that ebuilds aren't really copyrightable 
| content to begin with most of the time, call it quits, pull the 
| copyright notices, and be done with the whole thing?

How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?

# This file is part of the Gentoo Portage tree, which is Copyright (c)
# 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation, and distributed under the terms of the
# GNU GPL v2.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Fluxbox, shell tools)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Simon Stelling]

Hi,

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
> and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?
> 
> # This file is part of the Gentoo Portage tree, which is Copyright (c)
> # 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation, and distributed under the terms of the
> # GNU GPL v2.

Sounds good to me, but what about the patches in ${FILESDIR}?

Greetings,

blubb
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Ciaran McCreesh]

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On Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:18:27 +0100 Simon Stelling <blubb@gentoo.org>
wrote:
| Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
| > How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
| > and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single
| > work?
| > 
| > # This file is part of the Gentoo Portage tree, which is Copyright
| > (c) # 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation, and distributed under the terms
| > of the # GNU GPL v2.
| 
| Sounds good to me, but what about the patches in ${FILESDIR}?

They don't count. Ebuilds and eclasses do.

-- 
Ciaran McCreesh : Gentoo Developer (Vim, Fluxbox, shell tools)
Mail            : ciaranm at gentoo.org
Web             : http://dev.gentoo.org/~ciaranm


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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Georgi Georgiev]

maillog: 27/02/2005-18:18:27(+0100): Simon Stelling types
> Hi,
> 
> Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> >How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
> >and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?
> >
> ># This file is part of the Gentoo Portage tree, which is Copyright (c)
> ># 1999-2005 Gentoo Foundation, and distributed under the terms of the
> ># GNU GPL v2.
> 
> Sounds good to me, but what about the patches in ${FILESDIR}?

What patches? Are there still patches in FILESDIR?

-- 
|    Georgi Georgiev   |  Courtship to marriage, as a very witty       |
|     chutz@gg3.net    |  prologue to a very dull play. -- William     |
|   +81(90)6266-1163   |  Congreve                                     |
--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] gcc-4.0.0_alpha20050213 fails

[Luca Barbato]

Andres Järv wrote:
> I'm not expecting any support. I just thought that maybe some
> developer would like to know this and I didn't want to trash b.g.o
> with this.
> --
> gentoo-dev@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
> 
Currently gcc-4 isn't supported, that means that you are free to use our 
bugzilla to submit fixes you find and/or put a link to the upstream bug 
you opened.

We can't accept open bugs at this stage nor notices by email.

Sorry

lu

-- 

Luca Barbato

Gentoo/linux Developer		Gentoo/PPC Operational Manager
http://dev.gentoo.org/~lu_zero


--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Anthony Gorecki]

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On Sunday, February 27, 2005 9:13 am, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
> and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?

This seems like a sensible idea, presuming the developers make certain that 
the ebuilds which are committed to the tree are licensed under the GPL. I do, 
however, believe that the original author of a newly contributed ebuild 
deserves at least to have his name mentioned as such in the file.


-- 
Anthony Gorecki
Ectro-Linux Foundation

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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Donnie Berkholz]

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Hash: SHA1

Anthony Gorecki wrote:
> On Sunday, February 27, 2005 9:13 am, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> 
>>How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
>>and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?
> 
> 
> This seems like a sensible idea, presuming the developers make certain that 
> the ebuilds which are committed to the tree are licensed under the GPL. I do, 
> however, believe that the original author of a newly contributed ebuild 
> deserves at least to have his name mentioned as such in the file.

They should be mentioned in the ChangeLog. If they aren't, get in touch
w/ the dev who committed it.
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--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Simon Stelling]

Hi,

Georgi Georgiev wrote:
> What patches? Are there still patches in FILESDIR?

blubb@aqua ~/gentoo/gentoo-x86 $ find . -name *.patch | wc -l
5036

I always thought patches <20kb are okay in FILESDIR, did that change?

Greetings,

blubb
--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Krzysiek Pawlik]

Simon Stelling wrote:
>> What patches? Are there still patches in FILESDIR?
> 
> blubb@aqua ~/gentoo/gentoo-x86 $ find . -name *.patch | wc -l
> 5036

nelchael ~ # find /usr/portage/ -name "*.diff" | wc -l
1066

Count those too :)

-- 
Krzysiek 'Nelchael' Pawlik     RLU #322999    krzysiek.pawlik@people.pl
gentoo base system - kernel 2.6.10-ck5                   GPG:0x7E226904
http://fatcat.ftj.agh.edu.pl/~nelchael/
Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity.
--
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Georgi Georgiev]

maillog: 28/02/2005-11:47:33(+0100): Simon Stelling types
> Hi,
> 
> Georgi Georgiev wrote:
> >What patches? Are there still patches in FILESDIR?
> 
> blubb@aqua ~/gentoo/gentoo-x86 $ find . -name *.patch | wc -l
> 5036
> 
> I always thought patches <20kb are okay in FILESDIR, did that change?

Not that I know of... but I still think FILESDIR should only contain
digests.

maillog: 28/02/2005-12:02:06(+0100): Krzysiek Pawlik types
> Simon Stelling wrote:
> >>What patches? Are there still patches in FILESDIR?
> >
> >blubb@aqua ~/gentoo/gentoo-x86 $ find . -name *.patch | wc -l
> >5036
> 
> nelchael ~ # find /usr/portage/ -name "*.diff" | wc -l
> 1066
> 
> Count those too :)

Count all those .html, .conf, .rc, .txt .tar.gz (oh my!) and anything
that's in files but is not a digest.

Here is my piece of bashery:

$ find . -type f -path './*-*/*/files/*'  -not -name 'digest-*' | wc -l
9266
$ echo $(find . -type f -path '*/files/*' -not -name 'digest-*' | \
	xargs du -hsbc | awk  '/total$/ {print $1, "+"}' ) 0 | bc
20823960
$ du -hsb
93117041        .

So, between ⅕ and ¼ of the portage tree is patches, diffs, configs and
what else.

-- 
/    Georgi Georgiev   /  Martin was probably ripping them off.        /
\     chutz@gg3.net    \  That's some family, isn't it? Incest,        \
/   +81(90)6266-1163   /  prostitution, fanaticism, software. --       /
\  ------------------- \  Charles Willeford, "Miami Blues" wa          \
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Re: [gentoo-dev] Copyright assignment and ownership (again)

[Chris Gianelloni]

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On Sun, 2005-02-27 at 18:02 -0800, Anthony Gorecki wrote:
> On Sunday, February 27, 2005 9:13 am, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> > How about we recognise that individual ebuilds aren't worth anything
> > and that the tree *as a whole* should be copyrighted as a single work?
> 
> This seems like a sensible idea, presuming the developers make certain that 
> the ebuilds which are committed to the tree are licensed under the GPL. I do, 
> however, believe that the original author of a newly contributed ebuild 
> deserves at least to have his name mentioned as such in the file.

I think the Gentoo policy on this is to name the author in the initial
ChangeLog commit and not the ebuild itself.

-- 
Chris Gianelloni
Release Engineering - Strategic Lead/QA Manager
Games - Developer
Gentoo Linux

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