Open Stack

On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 02:58:27PM -0500, Mark Brown wrote:
> Richard Fontana <rfontana at redhat.com> wrote on 05/14/2013 02:50:31 PM:
> > On Tue, May 14, 2013 at 01:53:19PM -0500, Mark Brown wrote:
> > > In several cases, the provenance of individual files was being 
> > > investigated,
> > > and per-file copyright statements were an important part of that.
> > 
> > In the case of OpenStack, like many other modern projects, the most
> > accurate file provenance record would seem to be the git commit
> > history. That does not necessarily tell you anything conclusive about
> > copyright ownership, but it is a better record to go by than examining
> > copyright notices in source files (which, as noted, could well be, or
> > become, inaccurate).
> 
> Ah, but when files are taken from this project and used in another
> (non-Stack) work, they become out-of-context from your git.

Yes, and this is the strongest argument for having *some* kind of
legal notice in each file (though I don't consider it *too*
strong). It may depend on what circumstance you are concerned about
when a file gets used out of context. But this concern can be
addressed without inclusion of per-file copyright notices (Aaron
Williamson gives some suggestions in the article I referenced
upthread), and the larger point is that the copyright notices are
likely to become inaccurate anyway.

> > > IANAL, but I heartily suggest that this topic be brought up at the 
> > > Foundation
> > > level, before we put anything into effect at the Project level.
> > 
> > This honestly seems way too trivial to be a Foundation-level issue (I
> > assume by that you mean something that requires a Board
> > decision?). (Again, for clarification, I am not taking a particular
> > stance on the issue being discussed here.)
> 
> Mostly, I wanted to suggest that a lawyer needs to advise us on this.
> The Foundation is our go-to place for legal help, is it not?

That is a very interesting question, as phrased, but I'd say the
answer is no.

 - RF