You are viewing a plain text version of this content. The canonical link for it is here.
Posted to dev@spamassassin.apache.org by Duncan Findlay <du...@debian.org> on 2004/01/26 20:01:48 UTC
Re: svn commit: rev 6263 - incubator/spamassassin/trunk/spamc
On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 08:11:44PM -0000, mss@apache.org wrote:
> Log:
> Some more standardized copyrights.
> + * Copyright 2001-2002 by Craig Hughes
> + * Conversion to a thread-safe shared library Copyright 2002 by Liam Widdowson
> + * Portions Copyright 2002 by Brad Jorsch
> + * Windows adaption Copyright 2004 by Sidney Markowitz
> *
> * <@LICENSE>
> * Copyright 2004 Apache Software Foundation
Isn't this really confusing? Can the same file be copyright by 4
people as well as the ASF? Doesn't the CLA give us the right to simply
distribute as "Copyright 2001-2004 Apache Software Foundation"
--
Duncan Findlay
Re: svn commit: rev 6263 - incubator/spamassassin/trunk/spamc
Posted by Sander Striker <st...@apache.org>.
On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 20:01, Duncan Findlay wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 08:11:44PM -0000, mss@apache.org wrote:
> > Log:
> > Some more standardized copyrights.
>
>
> > + * Copyright 2001-2002 by Craig Hughes
> > + * Conversion to a thread-safe shared library Copyright 2002 by Liam Widdowson
> > + * Portions Copyright 2002 by Brad Jorsch
> > + * Windows adaption Copyright 2004 by Sidney Markowitz
> > *
> > * <@LICENSE>
> > * Copyright 2004 Apache Software Foundation
>
> Isn't this really confusing? Can the same file be copyright by 4
> people as well as the ASF? Doesn't the CLA give us the right to simply
> distribute as "Copyright 2001-2004 Apache Software Foundation"
For each one we have a CLA for, yes. And the less copyright lines
the better IMO.
Sander
Re: svn commit: rev 6263 - incubator/spamassassin/trunk/spamc
Posted by Duncan Findlay <du...@debian.org>.
On Mon, Jan 26, 2004 at 08:33:09PM +0100, Malte S. Stretz wrote:
> Actually, what is more confusing in my eyes is the Apache copyright stanza.
>
> The file itself is copyrighted by as many people who have contributed code
> to that file. So normally we'd have to have a whole list of Copyrights at
> the head of each file.
>
> The only instance in that list which doesn't "own" (at least according to
> European law) any Copyright is the ASF. Because by signing the CLA we
> didn't "give away" our copyrights to the ASF but more or less "licensed"
> our stuff to them. So the ASF has "a right to copy" but no "copyright" :)
> Cf. the CLA point 2.
IANAL. I would have thought that the ASF lawyers wrote that to give
the ASF the right to do mark stuff as Copyrighted by the
ASF. Essentially, I think here we should do what other ASF projects
do.
> I'd personally like to keep a list of major contributors (if they want) in
> the files because that gives some acknowledgement to their work. I think
> both Liam and Brad are listed there because they more or less directly
> requested it. I added Sidney because he did some great work with his
> Windows adaption. And call it a big ego, but I myself like to see my name
> on files on which invested quite some time :)
I've got no problems with listing contributors in the file, but I don't think we should say Copyright [yr] [contributor].
Perhaps something like this would be better:
Important Contributors:
- Somebody, Something they did
- Number 2, what they did
...
Having said this, it is inevitable that we leave people out. Perhaps
we should simply leave a big list of contributors and their
contributions in the tree somewhere, rather than in individual
files. (We pretty much have this list in the form of the ASF CLA
stuff.) This way, it's more centralised, and more likely to be
accurate and up to date.
--
Duncan Findlay
Copyright lines, acknowledgement WAS: Re: svn commit: rev 6263 -
incubator/spamassassin/trunk/spamc
Posted by Sander Striker <st...@apache.org>.
On Mon, 2004-01-26 at 20:33, Malte S. Stretz wrote:
> On Monday 26 January 2004 20:01 CET Duncan Findlay wrote:
> > On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 08:11:44PM -0000, mss@apache.org wrote:
> > > + * Copyright 2001-2002 by Craig Hughes
> > > + * Conversion to a thread-safe shared library Copyright 2002 by Liam
> > > Widdowson + * Portions Copyright 2002 by Brad Jorsch
> > > + * Windows adaption Copyright 2004 by Sidney Markowitz
> > > *
> > > * <@LICENSE>
> > > * Copyright 2004 Apache Software Foundation
> >
> > Isn't this really confusing? Can the same file be copyright by 4
> > people as well as the ASF? Doesn't the CLA give us the right to simply
> > distribute as "Copyright 2001-2004 Apache Software Foundation"
>
> Actually, what is more confusing in my eyes is the Apache copyright stanza.
The current position of the ASF is as follows:
The number of copyright lines has to be kept down to as few as possible.
A single line with 'Copyright Apache Software Foundation' is prefered.
While multiple copyright lines can coexist, they are undesirable for
the following reasons:
* Legal protection
When personal copyrights are mentioned, the ASF can do very little
when it comes to legal protection (nothing we can do when someone
is sued on personal title).
* Social aspects
Acknowledgement of contributions per file has shown not to promote
colloborative development.
There is the pattern where people try and touch as many files as
possible to get their name in as many files as possible.
There is also the creation of personal islands within the codebase.
The acknowledgements make this sentiment stronger. It will be
less likely that someone touches a file that is marked as someone
elses domain. This is bad.
The ASF obtains enough rights via CLAs, Corporate CLAs and Software
Grants, to re-license contributed works any way the ASF sees fit.
Up to and including, the removal of copyright lines. In reality it
is more complex, but this is the bottom line.
> I'd personally like to keep a list of major contributors (if they want) in
> the files because that gives some acknowledgement to their work.
This is highly discouraged. There are better ways to give credit, take
a look at the CHANGES file in Apache HTTP Server for example:
http://cvs.apache.org/viewcvs.cgi/httpd-2.0/CHANGES?view=markup
There's also this page acknowledging the committership:
http://httpd.apache.org/contributors/
[...]
> And call it a big ego, but I myself like to see my name
> on files on which invested quite some time :)
And this is exactly what we want to watch out for.
Just imagine the bulk of acknowledgement lines that are going to be
accumulated in a file over time. If the committer body is turning
over, partial rewrites happen, more lines get added, etc. etc.
Furthermore, where do you draw the line when to add a personal
acknowledgement line? A single character change, a line change,
a few lines, time spent on a patch?
The ASF tradition is not to do it.
Sander
Re: svn commit: rev 6263 - incubator/spamassassin/trunk/spamc
Posted by "Malte S. Stretz" <ms...@gmx.net>.
On Monday 26 January 2004 20:01 CET Duncan Findlay wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 24, 2004 at 08:11:44PM -0000, mss@apache.org wrote:
> > + * Copyright 2001-2002 by Craig Hughes
> > + * Conversion to a thread-safe shared library Copyright 2002 by Liam
> > Widdowson + * Portions Copyright 2002 by Brad Jorsch
> > + * Windows adaption Copyright 2004 by Sidney Markowitz
> > *
> > * <@LICENSE>
> > * Copyright 2004 Apache Software Foundation
>
> Isn't this really confusing? Can the same file be copyright by 4
> people as well as the ASF? Doesn't the CLA give us the right to simply
> distribute as "Copyright 2001-2004 Apache Software Foundation"
Actually, what is more confusing in my eyes is the Apache copyright stanza.
The file itself is copyrighted by as many people who have contributed code
to that file. So normally we'd have to have a whole list of Copyrights at
the head of each file.
The only instance in that list which doesn't "own" (at least according to
European law) any Copyright is the ASF. Because by signing the CLA we
didn't "give away" our copyrights to the ASF but more or less "licensed"
our stuff to them. So the ASF has "a right to copy" but no "copyright" :)
Cf. the CLA point 2.
I'd personally like to keep a list of major contributors (if they want) in
the files because that gives some acknowledgement to their work. I think
both Liam and Brad are listed there because they more or less directly
requested it. I added Sidney because he did some great work with his
Windows adaption. And call it a big ego, but I myself like to see my name
on files on which invested quite some time :)
Cheers,
Malte
--
[SGT] Simon G. Tatham: "How to Report Bugs Effectively"
<http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html>
[ESR] Eric S. Raymond: "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way"
<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>