New license and copyright dates

[Martin Cooper <ma...@apache.org>]

Hello,

One of the things that has been drilled into me over 25+ years as a
software developer is the importance of keeping the correct copyright
years in the source code. In particular, I have repeatedly heard from
corporate lawyers that it is *very* important to keep the original
copyright year on each file, in addition to the years of subsequent
modification. The reasons have to do with demonstration of "prior art" in
intellectual property law and patent litigation.

The reason I am bringing this up here is because I am seeing committers
across numerous Jakarta projects ignoring this. The problem is spreading
as people start switching to the new 2.0 license, overwriting the old
license with the new one using scripts, and thus losing the original
copyright year.

Rather than try to correct this each time I see it, and wonder how many
places I'm not catching, I think it would be a good idea if a message was
sent to committers@ pointing out the importance of this. Unless all those
corporate lawyers are wrong and / or it doesn't matter to the ASF, that
is... ;-)

Thanks.

--
Martin Cooper

Re: New license and copyright dates

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@collab.net>]

On Wed, 4 Feb 2004, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> Brian Behlendorf said on Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 10:05:44PM -0800,:
>
>  > I personally  don't see  why a file  with "Copyright  1999-2004" is
>  > going to be materially more or less effective
>
> You are  disabled from saying `I  published that before  you did' when
> faced  wiah a  suit by  somebody saying  that your  code  infringes on
> theirs.

Uh, but the artifact being published was published in 2004, not 1998.
Simply putting "1998" into the license does nothing to prove I actually
wrote any of that code in 1998, and it certainly doesn't mean all of it
was available in 1998.  If faced with such a suit, we'd reach back into
the CVS history and/or archive.org and/or our own release packages in our
archive to show what was published when.  Older releases don't suddenly
vanish when a newer release comes out.

> > than having a CVS tree with time stamps going that far back.
>
> The most important record of publication of a document is the document
> itself,  here  the source  code.   Remember  the  copyright /  version
> histories somewhere in the first pages of a book?

This is somewhat academic until we've got cases decided in court to set a
precedent for what's an authoritative claim of date of authorship.  I know
that I'd rather go in to court with a URL to archive.org with a date
showing the release of Apache 0.9.1 in 1995 rather than the current code
showing "copyright 1995-2004".

Books aren't different in publishing their version history.  Most
software, commercial and open source, have changelogs or release notes
that detail what changes were made when.  But knowing when a specific
algorithm or snippet of code is best demonstrated by showing the CVS tree.

In fact, it might behoove us to make regular tape backups of the CVS tree
and submit them to a records firm like Iron Mountain, which can timestamp
them and store them in perpetuity in a way that is irrefutable.  I
understand some companies have done this with the copy of Linux they
downloaded from SCO under the GPL, just in case SCO's lawyers send them a
pay-up letter.

IANAL, TINLA, if it's convenient to keep the year ranges when updating the
license there's probably no harm in doing so.  But I don't see a need to
mandate it.  If others in the ASF disagree, please speak up, I don't want
to be the last word on this.

>  > For  the purposes of anyone trying to follow
>  > the terms of the license, the most recent date is all that matters.
>
> Terms of license, yes. But when it comes to copyright ownerhship and
> infringement claims, it is a different story.

And nothing you put in the license can change that story.  :)

	Brian

Re: New license and copyright dates

["Mahesh T. Pai" <pa...@vsnl.net>]

Brian Behlendorf said on Mon, Feb 02, 2004 at 10:05:44PM -0800,:

 > I personally  don't see  why a file  with "Copyright  1999-2004" is
 > going to be materially more or less effective

You are  disabled from saying `I  published that before  you did' when
faced  wiah a  suit by  somebody saying  that your  code  infringes on
theirs. 
 
 >  than having a CVS tree with time stamps going that far back.

The most important record of publication of a document is the document
itself,  here  the source  code.   Remember  the  copyright /  version
histories somewhere in the first pages of a book?
 
 > For  the purposes of anyone trying to follow 
 > the terms of the license, the most recent date is all that matters.

Terms of license, yes. But when it comes to copyright ownerhship and
infringement claims, it is a different story.


-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
                                          
  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          
                                          
  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         
                                          
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

Re: New license and copyright dates

[Brian Behlendorf <br...@collab.net>]

I personally don't see why a file with "Copyright 1999-2004" is going to
be materially more or less effective than having a CVS tree with time
stamps going that far back.  For the purposes of anyone trying to follow
the terms of the license, the most recent date is all that matters.

So I wouldn't worry too much about it, is my sense - others?

	Brian

On Mon, 2 Feb 2004, Martin Cooper wrote:
> Hello,
>
> One of the things that has been drilled into me over 25+ years as a
> software developer is the importance of keeping the correct copyright
> years in the source code. In particular, I have repeatedly heard from
> corporate lawyers that it is *very* important to keep the original
> copyright year on each file, in addition to the years of subsequent
> modification. The reasons have to do with demonstration of "prior art" in
> intellectual property law and patent litigation.
>
> The reason I am bringing this up here is because I am seeing committers
> across numerous Jakarta projects ignoring this. The problem is spreading
> as people start switching to the new 2.0 license, overwriting the old
> license with the new one using scripts, and thus losing the original
> copyright year.
>
> Rather than try to correct this each time I see it, and wonder how many
> places I'm not catching, I think it would be a good idea if a message was
> sent to committers@ pointing out the importance of this. Unless all those
> corporate lawyers are wrong and / or it doesn't matter to the ASF, that
> is... ;-)
>
> Thanks.
>
> --
> Martin Cooper
>