Re: Dangling copyright in git hook template

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 19, 2022, 19:49 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbl07mrp3.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <CAB7QKarvGGjNf-bvuKqwnAVT_wX_=J+Dh0-AEdKPdVMbkSzW3Q@mail.gmail.com>

Frederic Tessier <ftessier@gmail.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior)
> New repo initialized containing no copyright claims
>
> What happened instead? (Actual behavior)
> New repo initialized with a copyright claim in .git/hooks/pre-rebase.sample:
> # Copyright (c) 2006, 2008 Junio C Hamano

Because the sample files are copied verbatim, with or without such copyright notice message, they are copyrighted by their respective copyright holders. And their modification and distribution should follow the same licensing terms (i.e. GPLv2) as our source files.

Removing that single line would not change anything, as these days the written copyright notice is optional across the globe.

We could probably stop shipping these .sample hook files, or the users can ignore them with the same ease.

I dunno. An alternative position on the other extreme is to find and convince all the copyright holders of template/, relicense these files under less restrictive license _and_ state the license clearly in each of these files. I think that ought to be our long term direction.

Thanks for bringing this up.