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

[David Kastrup]

Wol <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 15/02/2023 17:08, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:
>> 
>>> On 15/02/2023 02:01, David Kastrup wrote:
>>>>> Personally, I'd be happiest if everybody who updated a file was
>>>>> responsible for making sure the copyright date was updated
>>>>> appropriately,
>>>
>>>> That is going to work fantastically well, right?  Distribute
>>>> responsibility until nobody feels responsible for anything and enjoy the
>>>> chaos.
>>>
>>> Put it another way. If they can't be bothered to claim their
>>> copyright, that's their lookout. (Or reject submissions if they
>>> don't.)
>> I haven't ever seen a project that demands authors to declare that
>> they
>> will defend their copyright in court.  That would be a much more onerous
>> burden than even a copyright assignment.
>> 
> PLEASE be more careful reading what I wrote. You can take things too
> literally, I know. Please take what I write rather more literally
> also.
>
> All I said was "if the copyright owner can't be bothered to update
> attribution, that's down to them".

Quote marks suggest quoting.  But what you wrote was "if they can't be
bothered to claim their copyright, that's their lookout.  (Or reject
submissions if they don't.)"  Seems like you don't take literally what
you write.

> If they want to rigorously keep it up to date, that's fine too. It's
> their copyright, their prerogative. And how does updating (or not) a
> copyright statement to reflect reality make any statement as to
> whether they are going to defend said copyright?
>
> All I'm saying, it's not MY right to alter YOUR copyright statements,
> and nor is it your right to alter mine.

We are talking about updating the project license header.  Not about
falsifying the detailed record.  Of course every single line is open to
change in the course of project maintenance.

Maybe it would avoid this kind of noise if the copyright header just
referred to the LilyPond project and gave the year of licensing,
deferring to the revision control log for the details of authorship, and
to the ChangeLog files for the ancient history before Git.

Of course we'll get a shitstorm for such a change, and one should check
back with those authors who appear comparatively frequently in the
headers.  But at least that kind of shitstorm would at least be just
once and hopefully this will end the claims that LilyPond project
maintenance constitutes a criminal enterprise.

> I've been messaged off-list saying this is a contentious subject, and
> while I'm clearly trying to do "the right thing" he doesn't agree with
> me.

What is it in particular you are doing that is the right thing?

> I'm not a lawyer, I could be wrong. But my feelings are simple.

Your feelings about whose copyright headers?

> The *source* is an *aggregation* of individual files. Don't mess with
> *other* *peoples* copyrights. Everything I've said boils down to
> that. I just find it incredibly hard to justify anything else. Hence
> me wording it so strongly.
>
> If you want to disagree with me, fine. But please read what I wrote,
> not what you think I wrote.

See above.

> I think we both need to back off and cool down. Sorry.

-- 
David Kastrup