linux-kernel - Re: man-pages-6.14 released

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Message-ID: <bn2rs76dkhejmthy2wvul4ho26zzlwtkfg474ztiwggkxz7f3d@g25omktsd3ug>
Date: Fri, 9 May 2025 14:02:18 +0200
From: Alejandro Colomar <alx@...nel.org>
To: "Andries E. Brouwer" <aeb@....nl>
Cc: linux-man@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	libc-alpha@...rceware.org
Subject: Re: man-pages-6.14 released

Hi Andries,

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 01:26:27PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 01:15:06AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > Gidday!
> > 
> > I'm proud to announce:
> > 
> > 	man-pages-6.14 - manual pages for GNU/Linux
> > 
> > 
> > Global changes
> > --------------
> > 
> > -  CREDITS, *
> >    -  Move in-source contribution records to a new CREDITS file, and
> >       update copyright notices to be uniform across the project.
> 
> Good morning!
> 
> I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> others to do certain things.

I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
documented links to the discussion in the commit message:

commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@...nel.org>
Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200

    *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
    
    Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
    Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
    Cc: "G. Branden Robinson" <branden@...ian.org>
    Cc: Carlos O'Donell <carlos@...hat.com>
    Cc: Eugene Syromyatnikov <evgsyr@...il.com>
    Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@...nel.org>


In the first link, you'll see the discussion.

> If I pick a random page, man2/unlink.2, then it used to start
> 
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
> .\"             and Copyright (C) 1993 Ian Jackson
> .\"             and Copyright (C) 2006, 2014 Michael Kerrisk.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith <faith@...unc.edu>
> .\" Modified 1996-09-08 by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@...ll.no>
> .\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@...rsus.com>
> .\" Modified 2001-05-17 by aeb
> .\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@...il.com>
> 
> Today I read
> 
> .\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
> .\"
> .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
> 
> I no longer find the information about who owns this page.

It is less specific than it was before, but it still includes the
authors, as part of the group "The contributors ot the ...", which are
then listed in CREDITS.

	$ grep -e Faith -e Gulbrandsen -e Raymond -e Andries -e Kerrisk CREDITS
	Andries E. Brouwer <aeb@....nl>
	Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@...ll.no>
	Eric S. Raymond <esr@...rsus.com>
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@...il.com>
	Rickard E. Faith <faith@...unc.edu>

The current wording is IMO more appropriate, as we also credit
contributors that don't take the time to update the copyright (I haven't
updated copyright notices for myself in many pages).  On the other hand,
it literally removes copyright notices that were there before (by
transforming them into the unified one), so I would understand if
someone would consider this not valid legally.

I am not a lawyer.

> The old permission notice does not seem to allow distribution
> without this information.
> 
> Andries

I was wondering if I should CC the ~600 people listed in CREDITS, and
wait for a month or so until we can assume all agree to it (by their
silence).

Any opinions?  FWIW, are you okay with your own notices being
transformed?


Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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