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

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Message-ID: <qghsrpxzxccbcuuctx56oq5xe7mtpkgljis7ovopr6ojmiz3js@vw5p5w7om4f4>
Date: Fri, 9 May 2025 14:28:23 +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, "G. Branden Robinson" <branden@...ian.org>, 
	Carlos O'Donell <carlos@...hat.com>, Eugene Syromyatnikov <evgsyr@...il.com>
Subject: Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[CC += Branden, Carlos, Eugene]

Hi Andries,

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:14:54PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> 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."

I understood that paragraph as not changing copyright notices from
people unrelated to the project.  For example, pages copied (or based
on) other pages from UCB should retain their copyright (and I kept it):

	$ grep -rn Copyright.*University -C1 man | head
	man/man3/fopen.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/fopen.3:2:.\" Copyright 1990-1991, The Regents of the University of California.
	man/man3/fopen.3-3-.\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
	--
	man/man3/fts.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/fts.3:2:.\" Copyright 1989-1994, The Regents of the University of California.
	man/man3/fts.3-3-.\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
	--
	man/man3/alloca.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/alloca.3:2:.\" Copyright 1980-1991, Regents of the University of California.

> 
> 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.

Hmmmm, I'll ask the full list of everyone who's copyright notice was
changed.  Let's see how that goes.

BTW, while we're here, do you give explicit permission to change _your_
copyright notices in this sense?


Cheers,
Alex

> Andries

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

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