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Clarify copyright notice #1264

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TheEvilSkeleton opened this issue Oct 25, 2021 · 10 comments · May be fixed by #1276
Open

Clarify copyright notice #1264

TheEvilSkeleton opened this issue Oct 25, 2021 · 10 comments · May be fixed by #1276
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D'n'D required discussion and decision required documentation What's up Doc? pri +1 This seems to be more important (higher priority)

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@TheEvilSkeleton
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TheEvilSkeleton commented Oct 25, 2021 •
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Since Logisim-evolution does not use a CLA to transfer external contributors' copyright to the Logisim-evolution organization, the copyright holder belongs to their respective author.

I believe using "Logisim-evolution developers" implies that it's copyrighted solely by the main developers of Logisim-evolution, or in other words, by the people working for Logisim-evolution. I suggest using one of the notices below:

  • © 2001 Logisim-evolution contributors.
  • © 2001 Logisim-evolution authors.

This clarifies that the code is copyrighted under the Logisim-evolution organization AND its respective contributors. Also, stating the date in the copyright implies "and later", and therefore the "2021" in the original copyright notice can be safely removed and as a benefit for it to be easier to maintain.

The Linux Foundation also suggests a similar format: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects/#:~:text=Instead%2C%20many%20LF,the%20named%20project.
@maehne maehne added the documentation What's up Doc? label Nov 2, 2021
@maehne
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maehne commented Nov 2, 2021

This sounds reasonable and I agree with your proposals. A PR implementing this change would be welcome.

@TheEvilSkeleton
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What are your thoughts on changing the license file from LICENSE to COPYING? The FSF recommends COPYING.

TheEvilSkeleton added a commit to TheEvilSkeleton/logisim-evolution that referenced this issue Nov 3, 2021
@TheEvilSkeleton
Clarify copyright notice
eb16156 
This MR changes the copyright notice from "developers" to "contributors" for clarification.

Closes logisim-evolution#1264
@TheEvilSkeleton TheEvilSkeleton linked a pull request Nov 3, 2021 that will close this issue
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@MarcinOrlowski
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MarcinOrlowski commented Nov 4, 2021 •
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Before we accept any PR I'd like to have a discussion on this subject. Changing wording in code header fixes nothing really. We need to approach the process, think what to do (if anything) with past contributions etc. Therefore for now I'd dismiss PR #1276 completely before we have solid decisions.

@MarcinOrlowski MarcinOrlowski added pri +1 This seems to be more important (higher priority) D'n'D required discussion and decision required labels Nov 4, 2021
@TheEvilSkeleton
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What does D'n'D mean?

As for your comment, perhaps pinging each and every contributor and asking for their opinion may give us a better understanding on what we should do?

@MarcinOrlowski
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MarcinOrlowski commented Nov 4, 2021 •
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D'n'D stands for Discuss and decision. As for asking every contributor for opinion - everyone interested can express their thoughts on the subject in this thread - there's IMHO no need to ping anyone directly. Whoever is interested in this project's development is already involved and everyone else do not care that much so there's no real need to care their opinion as well.

@maehne
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maehne commented Nov 8, 2021

@TheEvilSkeleton: As our code base is licensed under GPL-v3.0, we should follow FSF recommendations on how the license and contributors should be reflected in the source code and project file hierarchy as well as distributed artifacts. So, renaming LICENSE to COPYING is fine with me.

@TheEvilSkeleton
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@maehne just FYI, I switched to it a couple of days ago: 69b3503

@MarcinOrlowski
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Again, why do we rename LICENSE.md file that holds the license to COPYING? Because GPL recommends that? That's silly.

@TheEvilSkeleton
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I believe it's because naming it COPYING emphasizes that you are free to copy other people's work. I contacted the FSF for more info, unsure when I will receive a response.

I prefer sticking to the FSF standards. I doubt there will be any harm in switching to it, but at least we'd be using standards.

@TheEvilSkeleton
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Finally got a response from them. Here's what I got:

In the GNU Project, we use and recommend "COPYING" [0], so that may
serve as a sign that the package in question follows GNU conventions;
also, uniformity helps people save time when looking for information
about the package. But of course, using a particular name isn't so
important as including a copy of the license in the release, to say
nothing of releasing the package under the GPL in the first place.

Hope that helps.

[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html

--
I am not a lawyer, this is not a legal advice.

@R3dst0ne R3dst0ne mentioned this issue Jan 17, 2023
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Clarify copyright notice TheEvilSkeleton/logisim-evolution
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@maehne @MarcinOrlowski @TheEvilSkeleton