Re: [PATCH/RFC] Developer's Certificate of Origin: default to COPYING

From: Richard Hansen <rhansen@bbn.com>
Date: Sep 12, 2013, 23:15 UTC
Message-ID: <52324B1A.2030001@bbn.com>
In-Reply-To: <CA+55aFyQZ8EiOg+CZy-KMaX0Hnkdmvq1+8b9p6uuMuHAUzYaAg@mail.gmail.com>

On 2013-09-12 18:44, Linus Torvalds wrote:

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> On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Linus, this is not limited to us, so I am bothering you; sorry about
>> that.
>>
>> My instinct tells me that some competent lawyers at linux-foundation
>> helped you with the wording of DCO, and we amateurs shouldn't be
>> mucking with the text like this patch does at all, but just in case
>> you might find it interesting...
> 
> There were lawyers involved, yes.
> 
> I'm not sure there is any actual confusion, because the fact is,
> lawyers aren't robots or programmers, and they have the human
> qualities of understanding implications.

Well stated.  :)

> So I'm actually inclined to
> not change legal text unless a lawyer actually tells me that it's
> needed.

Is it worthwhile to poke a lawyer about this as a precaution? (If so, who?) Or do we wait for a motivating event?

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> 
> Plus even if this change was needed, why would anybody point to
> "COPYING". It's much better to just say "the copyright license of the
> file", knowing that different projects have different rules about this
> all, and some projects mix files from different sources, where parts
> of the tree may be under different licenses that may be explained
> elsewhere..

I agree that your phrasing is better.

-Richard