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 73638138334 for ; Thu, 11 Oct 2018 21:29:10 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4372DE090E; Thu, 11 Oct 2018 21:29:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pl1-f170.google.com (mail-pl1-f170.google.com [209.85.214.170]) (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 0780BE0905 for ; Thu, 11 Oct 2018 21:29:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pl1-f170.google.com with SMTP id s4-v6so4849506plp.0 for ; Thu, 11 Oct 2018 14:29:07 -0700 (PDT) X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to; bh=6cmnclXn4AYK+Aua7bQBn6X5kkqVVKsq0c5ZRuq1vAo=; b=E9sRpO6ebt3C3lfA2jYuXuZHRcddsdxD6Ak61RBd9y905WzyxNZYnwR/KGUjqxhIGQ hPUjt23zeUBwehPiyw84VflqTr8vMU1SlTxXZBKdVlP8XG+qvYLcUXSKl4b2SPguZfpW Uz6lnZ5LZ3UPmkwohMGH7U4oFLSFSfuMokf3+mWY2gRvDY0yQD4CuSrSJfEvk6mRoYIJ cU5FAbzPCm5pgV1PnpOLCivM0ih5B59vBID0jDOmf2SGcw68ECdS8fgySET0Qua+EO6t Uo4/68D7a6NMDZyxD2NjHOQpKEon5oSIhaDe3r3OiLGMkpO77VASH2PAYJ4bRaql4KLl Zj4Q== X-Gm-Message-State: ABuFfojn7iNKfaLT2Ps83vaYj9WVar35TbVRaJ56SrfzuSX1kgEDoi5Y Ly8iIWE6VSaNvnniLeO9FOjT8fzZYlJ25+fP70RgQQ== X-Google-Smtp-Source: ACcGV63wZhlEiol9InuNzMR+JY96L25Gy1vuv2oVLkFmKelrtlHMorf3VmlwjV75TEGJm8pZNOEW5QEL7VF9RB9YvkQ= X-Received: by 2002:a17:902:b287:: with SMTP id u7-v6mr3077138plr.123.1539293346413; Thu, 11 Oct 2018 14:29:06 -0700 (PDT) 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 References: <20180930140524.015249f0@sf> <20181011153139.7700484dc6c452ed570df66a@gentoo.org> <20181012000936.39875e5f4224c1c009935adf@gentoo.org> In-Reply-To: <20181012000936.39875e5f4224c1c009935adf@gentoo.org> From: Rich Freeman Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2018 17:28:54 -0400 Message-ID: Subject: Re: [gentoo-project] Call for agenda items - Council meeting 2018-10-14 To: gentoo-project Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" X-Archives-Salt: 25ac46db-0283-4c94-a702-c70dad5455b8 X-Archives-Hash: 0ffacb49d7291be93b0a5e460dab6e0f On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 5:09 PM Andrew Savchenko wrote: > > It does matter, at least in some other countries (non-US). Anyway I > doubt that even in US committer has right to change copyright > notice without author's approval. > I actually couldn't find any law that explicitly forbids swapping names in a copyright notice in the US. It is illegal if you do it to conceal copyright infringement, but if you have a license to modify the work and redistribute it, and you respect all the licenses/etc, then I think the previous author would be hard-pressed to collect damages simply for changing a copyright notice in the source code. They might very well be ticked off about it and create a bunch of bad press of course. They certainly could sue you anyway, and since there isn't any case law I'm aware of I'm not certain how it would turn out. Evidently we live in a world where APIs can be copyrighted, so anything is possible. My thinking with the policy was to allow us to preserve these kinds of notices to avoid the issue, but the intent wasn't to keep grafting names onto them. As far as I can tell the Linux source code doesn't have any kind of consistent copyright notice use - it seems like whoever first contributes any random file picks whatever notice they want and it tends to not get touched after that. IMO copyright notices are somewhat overrated. I always viewed our copyrights as being more defensive in nature, though we certainly could pursue violators. As such, the notice doesn't really get you a whole lot. -- Rich