Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references

Subject: Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-09-15 14:41:18

On 15.09.2015 18:56, Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> Andrey Semashev <andrey.semashev <at> gmail.com> writes:
>
>> There is no VCS history in the distributed packages. Also, I'm not a
>> lawyer, but I'm not sure VCS history counts as a legal indication of
>> authorship.
>
> And arbitrary number I put in a source file body is?

I believe so, yes.

> I'll put 1900 there and will claim that bubble sort implemented in my file
> is authored by me. How about that?

I guess, you could falsify the copyright year. But you would have a hard 
time proving it in court if the real author of bubblesort sued you.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, so you're asking the wrong person.

>> I'll add that personally I feel that history is something that can be
>> lost relatively painlessly (e.g. due to transition to a different VCS or
>> github being destroyed or whatever other reason). All relevant
>> information should still be available in the source code.
>
> That would require to comment on pretty much each line of code, claiming the
> copyright.

If you want to distinguish every author's input then yes. No history 
will help you with that. I doubt that this is your concern, though.

When the code contributed by different authors is distributed under a 
single common license, it doesn't really matter who wrote which lines. 
The legal effect for the users is the same as if the whole file was 
written by a single person. That's why you don't have to comment every line.

When the software contains pieces of code distributed under different 
licenses then people tend to separate those pieces into different files 
and document licensing terms and copyright holders of each such piece. 
You'll find plenly examples in Google projects.

>>> * For libraries which are maintained by multiple developers and/or which
>>> were moved from one maintainer to another maintainer - these disclaimers
>>> either wrong or pain to maintain.
>>
>> I see no problem with that. Don't remove anyone from the copyright
>> notice, add yourself only when your contribution is large enout (at your
>> best judgement).
>
> And? What do I get copyright to (Assuming one does not have access to VCS)?

As a user you get the library as a whole on the terms described in BSL. 
The rights described in the license are granted to you by the persons 
listed in the copyright notice. Again, as a user you don't care who 
wrote which lines.