[oi-dev] Copyright for contributors - not in files, OI branded zones, binary compatibility

[Garrett D'Amore]

On Jul 17, 2013, at 7:19 PM, Nikola M. <minikola at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 07/17/13 11:15 PM, Alexander Pyhalov wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Nikola M. писал 17.07.2013 21:47:
>>> OI Hipster,
>>> (illumos-5c069a6) , last two updates have Xchat dumps core /crashing
>>> and X lock have no OI logo.
>> 
>> About xchat - I've tried it. It didn't dump core, but at start
>> complained about some symbols in tcl libraries. Perhaps, it also
>> should be rebuilt.
>> 
>> We need to do something with JDS... It will be always broken if we
>> don't have a tool to automatically rebuild it.
>> ---
>> System Administrator of Southern Federal University Computer Center
> Hi, I was just looking around changes in hipster,
> And then I saw this:
> "# Copyright (c) 2013 Alexander Pyhalov"
> 
> (https://github.com/OpenIndiana/oi-userland/commit/ab3ce40009249e514e51b0af8d2b8fee490c631a)
> 
> Please remove this from everywhere it is, since it feels a bit stupid to
> put one person credit in there/anywhere in changed files, moreover, that
> is not the place for that as I know, but in changes logs.
> It is whole distribution copyright file, it is not part of CDDL
> and I feel like those making changes should, like, restrain themselves
> from putting such things in the distribution.

While I don't have any particular interest here, I will say that copyright ownership and attribution is up to the contributor to determine.  The distro can choose to make certain policies, but as for *illumos*, we encourage everyone to assert their copyright as they contribute.  We believe that the community is better protected by having a widely distributed ownership, as that makes it much harder for some other entity to pick up the source and close it up. :-)

changelogs are the place to record changes, not to record ownership.  ownership -- in the form of copyright notices -- is best asserted as close to the content being claimed as possible.  For files, that is usually in the file itself. :-)


> Just a thought, before someone important (not me) starts complaining..
> of putting your own Copyright everywhere. You use CDDL, you don't need
> your copyright _anywhere_ in the distro..

You're wrong on that point.  CDDL is the *license*.  The license means *nothing* without an *owner*, which is what Copyright establishes. 

	- Garrett

> 
> Oh yes, I would also like to have some testing before even hipster gets out,
> these things (like breaking firefox, etc, did not happen ih Hipster
> until now).
> I am interested in learning how to update things, etc, too. (JDS etc)
> 
> What would happen to the rest of the apps if changes are such that
> applications stops working on a large scale? (Solaris was always proud
> of backward compatibility on binary level)
> It could be thinking about having OI-branded zones, that could have
> applications from OI /dev 151a8 running if older executables start
> failing on hipster on a larger scale. (like it seems they are failing
> with the recent changes)
> 
> Nikola M.
> 
> 
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