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<p dir="auto">On 28 Aug 2018, at 9:59, Jeremy Stanley wrote:</p>
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<div style="white-space:normal"><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid #777; color:#777; margin:0 0 5px; padding-left:5px"><p dir="auto">[Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice,<br>
and I am not representing the OpenStack Foundation in any legal<br>
capacity here.]<br>
<br>
TL;DR: You should not be putting "Copyright OpenStack Foundation" on<br>
content in Git repositories, or anywhere else for that matter<br>
(unless you know that you are actually an employee of the OSF or<br>
otherwise performing work-for-hire activities at the behest of the<br>
OSF). The OpenStack Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA)<br>
does not require copyright assignment. The foundation does not want,<br>
nor does it even generally accept, copyright assignment from<br>
developers. Your copyrightable contributions are your own, or by<br>
proxy are the copyright of your employer if you have created them as<br>
a part of any work-for-hire arrangement (unless you've negotiated<br>
with your employer to retain copyright of your work).<br>
<br>
This topic has been raised multiple times in the past. In the wake<br>
of a somewhat protracted thread on the<br>
legal-discuss@lists.openstack.org mailing list (it actually started<br>
out on the openstack-dev mailing list but was then redirected to a<br>
more appropriate venue) back in April, 2013, we attempted to record<br>
a summary in the wiki article we'd been maintaining regarding<br>
various frequently-asked legal questions:<br>
<a href="https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers" style="color:#777">https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers</a><br>
<br>
In the intervening years, we've worked to make sure other important<br>
documentation moves out of the wiki and into more durable<br>
maintenance (mostly Git repositories under code review, rendered and<br>
published to a Web site). I propose that as this particular topic is<br>
germane to contributing to the development of OpenStack software,<br>
the OpenStack Technical Committee should publish a statement on the<br>
governance site similar in nature to or perhaps as an expansion of<br>
the <a href="https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html" style="color:#777">https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html</a><br>
page where we detail copyright licensing expectations for official<br>
OpenStack project team deliverables. As I look back through that<br>
wiki article, I see a few other sections which may also be<br>
appropriate to cover on the governance site.<br>
<br>
The reason I'm re-raising this age-old discussion is because change<br>
<a href="https://review.openstack.org/596619" style="color:#777">https://review.openstack.org/596619</a> came to my attention a few<br>
minutes ago, in which some 400+ files within the<br>
openstack/openstack-helm repository were updated to assign copyright<br>
to "OpenStack Foundation" based on this discussion from an<br>
openstack-helm IRC meeting back in March (which seems to have<br>
involved no legal representative of the OSF):<br>
<a href="http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101" style="color:#777">http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101</a><br>
<br>
There are also a couple of similar changes under the same review<br>
topic for the openstack/openstack-helm-infra and<br>
openstack/openstack-helm-addons repositories, one of which I managed<br>
to -1 before it could be approved and merged. I don't recall any<br>
follow-up discussion on the legal-discuss@lists.openstack.org or<br>
even openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org mailing lists, which I would<br>
have expected for any change of this legal significance.<br>
<br>
The point of this message is of course not to berate anyone, but to<br>
raise the example which seems to indicate that as a community we've<br>
apparently not done a great job of communicating the legal aspects<br>
of contributing to OpenStack. If there are no objections, I'll push<br>
up a proposed addition to the openstack/governance repository<br>
addressing this semi-frequent misconception and follow up with a<br>
link to the review. I'm also going to post to the legal-discuss ML<br>
so as to make the subscribers there aware of this thread.<br>
-- <br>
Jeremy Stanley</p>
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<p dir="auto">It would be <em>really</em> helpful to have a simple rule or pattern for each file's header. Something like "Copyright (c) <date file was created>-present by contributors to this project".</p>
<p dir="auto">As you mentioned, this issue comes up about every two years, and having contributors police (via code review) the appropriate headers for every commit is not a sustainable pattern. The only thing I'm sure about is that the existing copyright headers are not correct, but I have no idea what the correct header are.</p>
<p dir="auto">--John</p>
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