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

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Message-ID: <20250509121454.GA952723@if>
Date: Fri, 9 May 2025 14:14:54 +0200
From: "Andries E. Brouwer" <aeb@....nl>
To: Alejandro Colomar <alx@...nel.org>
Cc: "Andries E. Brouwer" <aeb@....nl>, linux-man@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, libc-alpha@...rceware.org
Subject: Re: man-pages-6.14 released

Hi Alejandro,

> > 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>

So I read this last link, and see

"Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."

The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
of course provided the new contributor agrees.
In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.

Andries