Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] git-p4: add "Nvidia Corporation" to copyright header

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Dec 13, 2021, 00:11 UTC
Message-ID: <YbaPy8UhzIwRuNYm@camp.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <CABPp-BEyBLzWY2andDXZV6AgkQpnt1sp_rSThy84=qXMt2D8nA@mail.gmail.com>

On 2021-12-11 at 21:19:18, Elijah Newren wrote:

Show 24 quoted lines

> On Fri, Dec 10, 2021 at 12:30 PM Joel Holdsworth <jholdsworth@nvidia.com> wrote:
> >
> > The inclusion of the coorporate copyright is a stipulation of the
> > company code release process.
> > ---
> >  git-p4.py | 1 +
> >  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/git-p4.py b/git-p4.py
> > index 5568d44c72..17e18265dc 100755
> > --- a/git-p4.py
> > +++ b/git-p4.py
> > @@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
> >  # Author: Simon Hausmann <simon@lst.de>
> >  # Copyright: 2007 Simon Hausmann <simon@lst.de>
> >  #            2007 Trolltech ASA
> > +#            2021 Nvidia Corporation
> >  # License: MIT <http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php>
> >  #
> >  # pylint: disable=invalid-name,missing-docstring,too-many-arguments,broad-except
> > --
> > 2.33.0
> 
> Can we just git rid of these lines entirely?

In the case of the MIT License, it is a condition of the license that the copyright notices be preserved, so no, we cannot remove them. Specifically, the first paragraph, which grants permissions states that they are "subject to the following conditions", one of which is as follows:

  The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
  included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

The other is the total exclusion of warranty or liability.

As for the rest of the codebase, the GPL v2 states that the exercise of copying and distribution is permitted, "provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty." I am not an attorney, but I'm pretty sure that it would not be permissible to remove a copyright notice unless the code to which it referred were no longer present and that would not count as publishing an appropriate copyright notice.

However, that doesn't mean we need to add to them, but I will state that as a contributor who primarily contributes on his own time, I don't think it's unreasonable for a contributor to request that a copyright notice be applied where applicable as attribution, since that's the only compensation one receives for one's contributions. Such copyright notices could live in a central file for convenience, however.

-- 
brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them)
Toronto, Ontario, CA