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

[Andrew Savchenko <bircoph@gentoo.org>]

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On Wed, 03 Oct 2018 17:48:18 +0200 Ulrich Mueller wrote:
> >>>>> On Tue, 02 Oct 2018, NP-Hardass  wrote:
> > UNLESS you think this falls under #2:
> > "The contribution is based upon previous work that, to the best of my
> > knowledge, is covered under an appropriate free software license, and I
> > have the right under that license to submit that work with
> > modifications, whether created in whole or in part by me, under the same
> > free software license (unless I am permitted to submit under a different
> > license), as indicated in the file; or"
> > Which, as written, means that the committer must make a modifications to
> > the pseudonymous work to qualify as "[FOSS licensed and] created in
> > whole or in part by me."
> 
> That wording has be copied from the Linux DCO. Presumably it would be
> clearer if it said "submit that work with or without modifications".
> If unmodified distribution/submission was not allowed, the license
> wouldn't qualify as a free software license, in the first place.
> 
> > The premise of which is that pseudonymous contributions aren't allowed
> > unless the author submits it as a patch, not using a VCS (as
> > contributions via VCS must use the Certificate of Origin), and the
> > committer makes some trivial modification to them, and then, by magic,
> > we avoid requirements for real names.
> 
> See above, the right to distribute the work with modifications doesn't
> preclude its distribution without modifications.
> 
> The only problem I see is that usually it would not be very polite to
> sign off someone else's work. However, I don't think there is a real
> problem with that, as long as the committer can confirm that the
> contribution is under a free software license.

Sign-off usually means "I have reviewed this commit and approve it".
This is how it works in the Linux kernel where one have to collect
sufficient number of sign-offs to pass commit in the main tree. An
attempt to give it another meaning like "I'm the author of this
commit" looks questionable. Of course DCO certification is fine as
well.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko

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