Re: RFC: stop doing "grand replace" updates to copyright years

[David Kastrup]

Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 15/02/2023 06:23, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
>> 
>>>> IMHO it's even simpler - is it fraud? (I don't know the answer, but
>>>> it feels like it, and we shouldn't do it without legal advice).
>>>
>>> The GPL is used for licensing works _as_ _a_ _whole_, so it is
>>> definitely not fraud to update the license headers in lockstep.
>>> [...]
>> Well said, thank you!
>> 
> Sorry, can I re-write that?
>
> An individual source file is an individual work.

Apparently you don't understand what licensing a work means.  A license
is not something pervading files like copyright does.  A license is a
particular permission.  The GPL is a license for using a complete works,
not individual files.

If you do not accept the license, your rights to use a work fall back to
the default rights granted by copyright laws of your country, and the
person who has standing to sue you for breach of copyright is the
copyright holder of particular code.

> What happens if I decide to add a file under a BSD licence? The
> copyright ON THAT FILE is not GNU,

You are confusing copyright and license.  The copyright holder
apparently has decided to license the file to you under the BSD license.
That includes your right to release that file as a work licensed under
the GPL.

What happens if someone decides to break your license terms by using
that file on its own under the original license?

The one who could sue for breach of copyright/license is the copyright
holder.  That possibility is comparatively useless because

a) it's very unlikely you'll get them interested in the unlicensed use
of your copy
b) more often than not a copy could have been obtained by alternate
paths under a more permissive license
c) so you'll have a hard time proving that this particular copy had been
obtained from your GPLed work
d) If there had been any possibility to obtain a copy through a
different path, the copyright holder will have a hard time proving
actual damages

As a consequence, files obtained via a BSD license will be _effectively_
available under the BSD license since pressing the GPL licensing is not
likely to fly.

Legally, however, there is a distinction between authorship/copyright of
the material and licensing of a particular copy.

> it is not GPL, let's assume no-one has modified it. If that file is
> 100% my BSD-licenced copyright, you changing the copyright notice
> (even if it's just the date!) is fraudulent misrepresentation.

No, it isn't, not least of all because text bytes at the start of the
file are of no legal consequence as long as they are not declared to be
part of some interaction.

I can write at the start of a file "shoot yourself" and that is not
legally binding.

But changing the BSD licensing notice is against the terms of the BSD
license.  It's one of the few things where BSD without advertising
clause actually differs significantly from Public Domain.

> You yourself said "The GPL is used for licensing works _as_ _a_
> _whole_", that "whole", legally BEING THE BINARY. Otherwise the GPL
> truly would be viral, as detractors like to claim, seizing ownership
> of works that their creators explicitly did NOT place under the GPL.

Now you are really going off the rails.  I recommend that you read the
respective FAQs about the GPL.

> (And lastly, when you said that "GNU only requires copyright
> assignment for EMACS" and something else, I'm very sorry but you
> clearly did not read what I wrote. You used present tense, I used past
> tense. If GNU used to require assignment, then a policy of updating
> the notices every year makes sense.

No GNU program requiring a copyright assignment for working on it has
ceased doing so as far as I know, and no GNU program not requiring a
copyright assignment for working on it has started requiring one (for
the record: to integrate AUCTeX into Emacs core as a GNU project, it was
decided that copyright assignments would be needed in order not to have
a non-copyright-assigned GNU package for the copyright-assigned GNU
Emacs.  That made it necessary to hunt up all relevant old AUCTeX
contributors well into the 20th century and get assignments from them, a
real nuisance: so this was a case where becoming a GNU project
necessitated assignments after the fact).

> But if they DON'T require copyright assignment, and they DON'T own the
> copyright, then changing the copyright notice smacks of fraud.

The FSF does not change copyright notices of projects it is not in
charge of and I already explained why this statement is both wrong and
unnecessarily inflammatory.

> Simple as. BUT DOES ANYBODY REALLY CARE? Only the armchair lawyers, I
> guess :-)

I am not sure who you try to denigrate here and for what purpose.

-- 
David Kastrup