Re: [PATCH] blame.c: don't drop origin blobs as eagerly

From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
Date: May 28, 2016, 14:00 UTC
Message-ID: <87bn3qnuyy.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1605281430440.4449@virtualbox>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 14 quoted lines

> Hi David,
>
> On Sat, 28 May 2016, David Kastrup wrote:
>
>> > The short version of your answer is that you will leave this patch in
>> > its current form and address none of my concerns because you moved on,
>> > correct? If so, that's totally okay, it just needs to be spelled out.
>> 
>> Yes, that's it.  You'll notice that the code change itself is both
>> minuscule as well purely functional, so it contains nothing
>> copyrightable.
>
> That is unfortunately an interpretation of the law that would need to
> come from a professional lawyer.

A professional lawyer would laugh at "Signed-off-by:" being of more legal significance than a written record of intent but of course you know that. This is mere bluster.

> As it is, the patch was clearly authored by you, and anybody else who
> would claim authorship would most likely be breaking the law.

The _diff_ is not "clearly authored" by me but just the simplest expression of the intent. The commit message is clearly authored by me but is not acceptable anyway. Whoever gets to write an acceptable commit message is up for all copyrightable credit in my book. Feel free to keep the authorship if you really want to, but when replacing the commit message it is not a particularly accurate attribution.

> So I won't touch it.

Signed-off-by: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>

You don't get more than that for other patches either and it's a few bytes compared to a mail conversation. Here is a PGP signature on top.

As I said: I am not going to put more work into it anyway and if it's an occasion for theatralics, it has at least accomplished something.

-- 
David Kastrup