>>>>> On Thu, 31 May 2018, Ulrich Mueller wrote: > (hoping that he hasn't snipped too much of the context) Presumably I have. So find Greg's two messages below, in full (which had gentoo-project in CC). Ulrich >>>>> On Wed, 30 May 2018, Greg KH wrote: > On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 04:36:09PM +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote: >> A while back I requested information on past copyright assignments [1]. >> Since then, we have located some 30 of the assignment forms, signed by >> developers (most of them retired by now) in 2004. >> >> Here is the second part of the exercise. The current draft of the new >> Gentoo copyright policy [2] arranges for two procedures: >> >> 1. Certifying agreement to a "Gentoo Developer's Certificate of Origin" >> by including a "Signed-off-by" line with every commit. This would >> be virtually identical to the procedure used for the Linux kernel, >> and would be mandatory. A draft of the Gentoo DCO can be seen at [3]. > Please please please do not "fork" the DCO. It was specifically > designed so that any project can use it, as-is, with no changes needed. > Yes, some foolish projects have gone off and rewritten it, but that was > crazy, and they now wish they did not, as it requires corporate lawyers > to manually have to go review the "new" document to ensure that it > really is doing what it thinks it is doing. > Again, please just use the DCO. It's at it's own web site, and is good > to be used that way: > https://developercertificate.org/ > Also, note, that if you do decide to copy it, I personally am going to > get upset as it is a blatent copyright violation. So there is that > issue... > Hint doing a s/open/free/ on the original text does not mean that you > suddenly have created a brand new document with no requirement to abide > by the original document's copyright. I see you claim that it was > published in 2005 with a CC-BY-SA-2.5 License? Do you have any > reference for that, I know I spent a lot of time working on this in the > past and I do not remember that... > Again, just use the DCO, please. >> 2. In addition, according to the current policy draft, developers would >> be encouraged to sign a "Gentoo Contributor License Agreement (CLA)". >> Its current draft version is at [4]. However, this would be >> completely voluntary and *not* be required. The exact workflow >> hasn't been drafted yet, but PGP signing of the form would be one >> possibility. (Also note that the form includes fields for real name >> and postal address.) >> >> The goals of the second item is to "make compliance with this policy >> easier (fewer copyright holders to list), and allow the Foundation to >> enforce copyrights and re-license content if appropriate" [2]. >> Apparently, we will only be able to achieve these goals if a >> significant fraction of contributors will sign the CLA. >> >> So, before I pursue more work on the CLA I would like to ask all >> developers and contributors: >> >> - Would you sign a "Gentoo Contributor License Agreement", similar to >> the current draft in [4]? > No, I personally will not sign any CLAs, sorry. > Sent publically as the DCO thing should be discussed in public. > thanks, > greg k-h >>>>> On Thu, 31 May 2018, Greg KH wrote: > On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 11:44:34PM +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote: >> >>>>> On Wed, 30 May 2018, Greg KH wrote: >> >> > Please please please do not "fork" the DCO. It was specifically >> > designed so that any project can use it, as-is, with no changes >> > needed. >> >> We simply cannot. We have files in the Gentoo repository that are not >> under a free software license, and for these we need an extra clause. > Your "extra clause" is pretty odd. You took out the c) clause of the > original DCO for some unknown reason as well, which is going to cause > you big problems. > Was this vetted by a lawyer? Again, this is going to cause companies > to have to spend lots of time and money to be able to get anyone to use > this, do not change things lightly. >> Otherwise we would have to specify in the policy that certain commits >> are excepted from the requirement of a Signed-off-by line, and IMHO >> that would be a much worse solution. >> >> Addition of the extra clause for licenses and similar files resulted >> from a long discussion on 2018-01-25 in the #gentoo-council channel, >> which included three council members and a trustee. > No license lawyers? > Are you _sure_ you need this change? >> > Yes, some foolish projects have gone off and rewritten it, but that >> > was crazy, and they now wish they did not, as it requires corporate >> > lawyers to manually have to go review the "new" document to ensure >> > that it really is doing what it thinks it is doing. >> >> > Again, please just use the DCO. It's at it's own web site, and is >> > good to be used that way: >> > https://developercertificate.org/ >> >> > Also, note, that if you do decide to copy it, I personally am going >> > to get upset as it is a blatent copyright violation. So there is >> > that issue... >> >> How is it a copyright violation? We create a modified version of >> a document that was released under a Creative Commons Attribution- >> ShareAlike 2.5 License. Distribution of modified versions is allowed >> under this license, and I believe that we include proper attribution. >> Also section 4b of CC-BY-SA-2.5 explicitly allows distribution of a >> modified work under CC-BY-SA-3.0. > Fair enough, but please be sure to run the fact that you are changing > something is obviously copyrighted by someone else with a declaration > that it can not be changed, by relying on the wayback machine to make > that change past a copyright lawyer. There is a reason that the DCO is > not under such a license anymore, as this "respin" proves it :) >> > Again, just use the DCO, please. >> >> See above, the simple reason is that we need an exception for license >> files. >> >> Then again, Linux might profit from such a clause too. See for example >> the following commit: >> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0?id=255247c2770ada6edace04173b35307869b47d99 >> >> The commit message carries two Signed-off-by lines (and a Reviewed-by >> by yourself). But let's look what the document says about its license: >> >> + Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies >> + of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. >> >> Clearly, this isn't an open source license, because it doesn't allow >> modifications. So I wonder how the committer could certify agreement >> to the DCO 1.1 there? > Section b) should cover this nicely. If your lawyers somehow feel it > does not, I will be glad to consult with the LF lawyers about this and > have them discuss the matter. > Also note that I really doubt that the fact that you can include > verbatim copies of a license in a repo is going to make anyone upset at > all, unless you modify that license text. So you might all be worried > about nothing "real" at all here. License files are not code, just like > documentation is not code, and almost all open source licenses do not > cover either of them well, if at all. > As an armchair thought experiment of this, how would the overall license > of a GNU project's tarball release such as bash, which is GPLv3, cover > the license file of the GPLv3 text that is included in the tarball? > Would the inclusion of a file in the tarball that is obviously not under > a free software license cause that project's license to somehow not be > "free software"? > It's a fun rabit hole to go down, but one that I think you will have to > do on your own :) >> > No, I personally will not sign any CLAs, sorry. >> >> This is interesting, since you had previously signed the copyright >> assignment form to Gentoo Technologies, Inc. (To be precise, you PGP >> signed it and sent it to recruiters@gentoo.org on 2004-03-08.) > That was because I was forced to do so in order to become a Gentoo > developer at the time, and my employer at the time also insisted on it, > as they were the owners of all of the work that I did on Gentoo, not me. > I had no say in the matter at all, just like almost all other people > employed in the US due to the standard employment contract used. So to > be clear, that was not _me_ giving up any copyrights, it was my > employer. > My position has changed on how best to handle copyrights in the 14 years > since then, and I currently am employed by someone who allows me to keep > my personal copyright (while also giving them a copy) so I guess I > should figure out how to somehow retroactively not-sign it :) > Any hints as to how to do that? > Anyway, my strongest suggestion as to why not to change to use your > custom license is the fact that you will now require all Gentoo > developers who work for companies that allow their employers to > contribute to Gentoo, to now have to have their lawyers read over this > new license and come to an understanding of it before those people are > allowed to contribute. That's a huge waste of time and money and will > make those companies, and developers, grumpy. > And if developers ignore the fact that they should have run this change > by their employers, that could get them into big trouble later on. > thanks, > greg k-h