[GitHub] [incubator-pekko] alexandru commented on issue #38: Merging Lightbend copyright and ASF headers for existing source files

[GitBox <gi...@apache.org>]

alexandru commented on issue #38:
URL: https://github.com/apache/incubator-pekko/issues/38#issuecomment-1308867939

   Renaming the `akka` package to `pekko` will create a derived work that justifies adding the Apache copyright notice.
   
   The question is, is such a header change legal? I think it is, as we won't be removing Lightbend's copyright notice, rather we are adding to it.
   
   Surely this is legal:
   
   ```
   /*
    * Copyright (C) 2014-2022 Lightbend Inc. <https://www.lightbend.com>
   /*
   
   /*
    * Copyright (C) 2022 The Apache Software Foundation. <https://www.apache.org/>
    */
   
   package pekko
   ```
   
   And, so is this:
   
   ```
   /*
    * Copyright (C) 2014-2022 Lightbend Inc. <https://www.lightbend.com>
    * Copyright (C) 2022 The Apache Software Foundation. <https://www.apache.org/>
    */
   
   package pekko
   ```
   
   And, so is this:
   
   ```
   
   And so is this:
   
   ```
   /*
    * Copyright (C) 2014-2022 Lightbend Inc. <https://www.lightbend.com>
    * Copyright (C) 2022 The Apache Software Foundation. <https://www.apache.org/>
    *
    * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
    * ...
    */
   
   package pekko
   ```
   
   Lightbend's copyright stays in place, where it was, nobody's touching it. And the change is very helpful, as it informs of the project's history, and this project will indeed have multiple copyright owners.
   
   Plus, at some point we will add new files. What will happen to those? Will they have a different header? I don't think they should have a different header, because even new files can be considered derived works of Lightbend's work. But then this header would be incorrect for new files, right?
   
   ```
   /*
    * Copyright (C) 2014-2022 Lightbend Inc. <https://www.lightbend.com>
   /*
   ```
   
   And if we go with it for all files, what will we do when the year 2023 comes?
   
   Sure, legal needs to weigh in, however managing headers becomes impractical if we don't have the same header everywhere, and it would be best to use [sbt-header](https://github.com/sbt/sbt-header).


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