On Wed, 4 Oct 2006 11:40:40 +0200 VMiklos <vmiklos@frugalware.org> wrote:
okay, we need facts. what about alpm.c? i _do_ think it was nowhere in 2002
When I see a copyright in a source file that is part of a the entire source code for an autonomous/whole project, I see it as a copyright representing the WHOLE project, not that individual file. Following that logic, if I write a new source file (eg, db.c or whatever) in 2004, I still add the 2002-2004 (C) to it, since the pacman project itself began in 2002. Approaching this idea from another angle... imagine if all of pacman was in a single .c file. Then it would make perfect sense to keep the copyright from 2002, since that's when the file began? Files are just a way of organizing the code -- the project itself is what I'm considering when I write down those dates. I think some projects have a more structured modularity to them that necessitates a more distributed copyright system. I have reservations about moving copyrights over to something like "The Pacman Team", because then the code is officially governed by a body of people, and a body which has no real rules or structure at this time. What if there was a decision to be made that could only be done so by the copyright holder, and "The Pacman Team" was divided on it? Can an ephemeral collection of people legally own a copyright like this without some sort of offical registration of members? I'm assuming the member list of the pacman-dev ML does not constitute the pacman team. But if you look at the ChangeLog for pacman2 (not even including pacman3) there are a lot of fly-by contributors that could feel put out if they didn't have some rights to their contributed code.
2) see the cvs logs, see the AUTHORS file. if that makes you happy, then feel free to remove me, ask Christian and Aurelien about their lines
The AUTHORS (or better yet, CREDITS) file should be used to list all major contributors to a project. That's there so we don't have to amend the copyright headers of all the source files everytime someone makes a contribution. If we amended the copyright headers, then pacman.c would probably have about 30 names at the top of it.
stop. it was me who updated the copyright lines, this issue has nothing with Christian or any other developer
And besides, you talk about "invalid copyrights".... says who? It is completely within legal limits for an author to not be a copyright holder.
Definitely. Some projects require that any patches be submitted with a little email stub that basically says "I give up any rights to this work to the original copyright holder" just to avoid issues like this. The author of the patch is still known, but he/she does not retain copyright rights to it any longer.
-COPYRIGHT_HOLDER = Judd Vinet +COPYRIGHT_HOLDER = Yoyodyne, Inc.
feel free to flame me, but this is already checked in by Judd: $ find . -type f |xargs grep 'COPYRIGHT_HOLDER =' ./lib/libalpm/po/Makevars:COPYRIGHT_HOLDER = Judd Vinet ./src/pacman/po/Makevars:COPYRIGHT_HOLDER = Yoyodyne, Inc.
and of course you can see, that's the default, so the story imho is the following: 1) when krix added the files to our tree, he fogot to change the default copyright holder 2) he sent here the patch 3) Judd corrected the copyright line 4) we never noticed he modified the patch we sent him
conclusion: we never changed "Judd Vinet" to "Yoyodyne, Inc."
This kind of stuff doesn't bother me. I'm pretty sure none of you guys work for Yoyodyne, Inc. :)
yes, that's strange. i could say don't talk about this at all, because it's Judd and my business, definitely not your one
maybe you don't see, but i still would like to be constructive. let's try to turn this endless flame thread to some positive discussion and let's try to find out a solution
Thank you, VMiklos. Constructive is good. Here are my thoughts -- all in all, I would like to retain the copyright to pacman. I worked hard on it for a number of years and I think I deserve it. With that said, people like you, Aaron, Christian, and Aurelien certainly deserve credit for large portions of the code and what it can do today. This is what I want the AUTHORS file to say, and prominently. We can also reference it on the pacman website and in the README file. It is not my intention to hide the fact that I had help with the project, because I did have a lot of help. But if the day comes where a big decisions needs to be made that only the copyright holder can make, I wouldn't want to be bogged down by a game of who-wrote-what -- I think that could tear the project apart.
3) if you think the copyright lines in the cvs are valid, then please have a look at the kernel's source, there is zero "copyright 1991-2006 Linus Torvalds" line
Again, I think the lack of Linus' name on some files is due to the crazy modularity of the kernel. The core kernel itself is still Linus' baby, and as benevolent dictator, he retains the right to make decisions governing it. If he decides to sell the code to Microsoft, then it may be that the ipw2200 module cannot go with it. But the majority of the code is under his control.
4) in other words, i've sent here a patch to modify those lines, you said the patch is not ok, then feel free to improve it. and of course you have the right to reject the patch, but please consider the ideas mentioned above before doing so
Let me take this opportunity to thank you, Christian, and the other developers at Frugalware for your hard work on pacman. While we are often too busy to process your changes, we do appreciate them. I think pacman will grow to be much more powerful now that two strong distributions are using it. Look out rpm and deb/apt-get. :) - J