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

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Sep 12, 2013, 23:25 UTC
Message-ID: <CA+55aFzNUr8-LQ1JqCBboFktmJRB1ctxP3=huOt5H=GQRLFbow@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <52324B1A.2030001@bbn.com>

On Thu, Sep 12, 2013 at 4:15 PM, Richard Hansen <rhansen@bbn.com> wrote:

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

I can poke the lawyer that was originally involved. If people know other lawyers, feel free to poke them too. Just ask them to be realistic, not go into some kind of super-anal lawyer mode where they go off on some "what if" thing.

Note that one issue is that this is kind of like a license change, even if it's arguably just a clarification. I'd expect that a lawyer who is so anal that they think this wording needs change would also think that the DCO version number needs change and then spend half an hour (and $500) talking about how this only affects new sign-offs and how you'd want to make it very obvious how things have changed, Yadda yadda.

IOW, my personal opinion is that if you get a lawyer that is _that_ interested in irrelevant details, you have much bigger problems than this particular wording. Lawyers do tend to be particular about wording, but in the end, they tend to also agree that intent matters. At least the good ones who have a case. Once they start talking about the "meaning of the word 'is'", you know they are just weaselwording and don't actually have any real argument.

              Linus