From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from lists.gentoo.org (pigeon.gentoo.org [208.92.234.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by finch.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id EC6D7138334 for ; Wed, 14 Nov 2018 19:39:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 70FC9E0ADF; Wed, 14 Nov 2018 19:39:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 3E733E0942 for ; Wed, 14 Nov 2018 19:39:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: from scorpius (unknown [100.42.98.196]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) (Authenticated sender: chutzpah) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 9E19C335C3D; Wed, 14 Nov 2018 19:39:08 +0000 (UTC) Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2018 11:38:55 -0800 From: Patrick McLean To: Rich Freeman Cc: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] rfc: copyright attribution clarifications Message-ID: <20181114113855.245ac524@scorpius> In-Reply-To: References: <20181113183242.GA26771@whubbs1.gaikai.biz> <20181114024643.GA15537@linux1.home> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.17.1 (GTK+ 2.24.32; x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Project discussion list X-BeenThere: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org Reply-To: gentoo-project@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Archives-Salt: 633cdfbf-429e-4274-b0e3-3359af4ec4b7 X-Archives-Hash: 50742aa7f8489a7c896aa4689ed2af44 On Wed, 14 Nov 2018 07:58:08 -0800 Rich Freeman wrote: > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 11:18 PM Sarah White > wrote: > > > > On 11/13/2018 09:46 PM, William Hubbs wrote: > > > On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 06:17:17PM -0800, Rich Freeman wrote: > > >> On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 10:32 AM William Hubbs > > >> wrote: > > >>> > > > > multiline (standard form) copyright attribution doesn't have > > anything to do with licensing, and only serves to strengthen > > copyleft due to the presence of additional copyright notices which > > clearly lay out a list of entities / people with a stake in > > protecting the interests of an opensource project remaining > > FOSS/Libre. > > First, git already does this. It does not, it lists authors, not copyright holders which are not the same thing. > Second, please cite an example of a copyright lawsuit that was won > because multiple notices were listed, or a law that provides > protection if multiple notices are provided. Your claim that doing > this "strengthen[s] copyleft" is baseless as far as I can tell. I don't think it's about citing cases, the GPL has never gotten to trial AFAIK, so under that metric, the GPL is useless. > The presence of any copyright notice in the form given in US law > already defeats the innocent infringement defense, even if it doesn't > mention you. Beyond that copyright law applies whether there is any > notice at all. > > > gentoo's license policy already > > requires FOSS/Libre licenses and correctly using copyright law for > > copyleft purposes makes everything work correctly when it's used > > correctly. > > Indeed, and for this reason I don't actually see any reason under US > copyright law that we couldn't strip out additional copyright notices > in code as a result. US law explicitly makes this illegal only if it > is done to hide infringement, and we don't infringe copyright. I can > only imagine the wails of the copyright pro-spam crowd if we actually > tried that (not that I'm suggesting it)... Are you suggesting that stripping out copyright headers is permissable? I would talk to a copyright lawyer before making any such assumptions. That would imply that chromeos could stip out all the Gentoo copyrights and replace them with chrome project ones. Other Gentoo derivatives could do the same thing, as long as it retains the GPL, all is permitted.