Bug: "hg version" copyright needs updated year and language

[Mads Kiilerich]

(moving to -devel)

Martin Geisler wrote, On 02/18/2009 05:46 PM:
> Good idea! I would actually like to see a general cleanup of all file
> headers. Currently they contain outdated year ranges and a silly mix of
> author names.
>
> Putting names in the files is redundant and can imply some sort of
> ownership over the file, when infact most files are edited by many
> people, of which only some has a dedicated copyright notice.
>
> I suggest we standardize all file headers to look like this:
>
> ----
> # Copyright 200x-200y Matt Mackall <mpm at selenic.com> and others
> #
> # This software may be used and distributed according to the terms
> # of the GNU General Public License, incorporated herein by reference.
>   

I am not a lawyer and do not claim any copyright over Mercurial and do 
not want to start a discussion, but nobody said anything and I really 
think a heads-up is needed:

Putting your name and a copyright notice in a file does not just give a 
silly mix of names, but it really indicates who collectively holds the 
copyright over that file and owns it. I think that it is generally 
accepted that if you contribute "minor" "trivial" bugfixes then you do 
not get any ownership over your own work, and adding your name as 
copyright holder would not be justified. If your name isn't listed as 
copyright holder then the other copyright holders are free to re-license 
it without asking you. So all of the listed copyright holders provided 
substantial nontrival contributions to the content, and none of them are 
allowed to re-license it without the others consent.

Some "open source" projects require all copyright to be assigned to them 
so they can relicense it without asking others - that is how for example 
Sun, FSF and MySQL did/does. AFAIK Matt never asked for contributors to 
assign the copyright to him. That is our guarantee that Mercurial will 
stay GPLv2 forever.

FWIW I don't know what "and others" means in a copyright statement. It 
might be fine in a one-liner informational summary, but I don't think it 
makes sense to use it in a copyright statement.

By releasing a file with any of the names removed you are probably 
violating their copyright, unless you very carefully remove their whole 
contribution and all work derived from it. Be careful and ask your 
lawyer - and if you ever plan to go the US (and leave it again) then be 
sure to consult a US lawyer too ;-)

/Mads

ps: Don't believe what I said; I am probably wrong - and that kind of 
proves my point.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: smime.p7s
Type: application/x-pkcs7-signature
Size: 3435 bytes
Desc: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Url : http://selenic.com/pipermail/mercurial-devel/attachments/20090219/1e0775a9/attachment.bin