[yt-dev] License switch: remove author tags

Tue Sep 10 14:23:46 PDT 2013

Whoops, sorry.  I left out the 4th basic option.

4. Incorporate: become an LLC or a non-profit which is a legal entity.
 This is what the HDF Group is for HDF5 or the Plone Foundation for Plone.

I *highly* advise against this option.  If you thought working on open
source code was overwhelming...

On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 11:14 PM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com>wrote:

> Thank you, Anthony -- this is a very useful reply.
>
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Anthony Scopatz <scopatz at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I have some amount of experience with, though please don't confuse that
> with
> > legal counsel.
> >
> > So both J and Nathan correct.  The "yt collaboration" or "yt team" is
> not a
> > legal entity.  Because of the that copyright is held by the individual
> > contributors.  However, in the license document when you say "yt
> > collaboration" that is understood as "the authors."  Which is part of why
> > you should publish an author list.  However, what goes along with this is
> > that the individual authors are personally liable for the code.  This is
> why
> > having a license is important.  Open source license shield you from
> > liability because they explicitly state that they offer no warranty and
> the
> > user assumes the risk.  (And since it is software it is not as if someone
> > will accidentally cut off their hand or something...unless you are David
> > Beazley.)
>
> For everyone else out there, our licenses (both new and old) do
> explicitly state this.  This is the BSD 3-clause.  (Caps are not
> mine.)
>
> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS
> "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
> LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
> A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT
> OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
> SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
> LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
> DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
> THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
> (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE
> OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
>
> >
> > That said, you have three basic options:
> >
> > 1. leave the license and liability and copyright where it is, with the
> > individual authors.
> > 2. Communally decide to give one person copyright, they are a legal
> entity,
> > 3. Assign copyright to a neutral third party organization which is a
> legal
> > entity, e.g. NumFOCUS*, Software Freedom Conservancy, a University.
> >
>
> I would be open to any of these three.  Were it to be #3, either
> NumFOCUS or SFC would be my preference, in that order.  Being under
> the NumFOCUS umbrella would be attractive to me, personally.
>
> > Note that issues related to this are only ever important if someone
> decides
> > to litigate or you want to trademark something.  For the overwhelming
> > majority of projects, these never happen.
> >
> > Be Well
> > Anthony
> >
> > * Note that this is part of why we started NumFOCUS.  Though I admit that
> > negotiating with the bigger projects on what a successful sponsorship
> > agreement looks like is taking longer than everyone would like.  We do
> hold
> > a few copyrights though currently.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 10:49 PM, Nathan Goldbaum <nathan12343 at gmail.com
> >
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> I believe you retain your copyright over your changes regardless of the
> >> author tags.  IANAL so if someone knows better please correct me.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 1:43 PM, j s oishi <jsoishi at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> +1 on removing author tags
> >>>
> >>> What do we do about the copyright? I mean, can we assign copyright to
> >>> "the yt collaboration" if the yt collaboration doesn't exist in a legal
> >>> sense?
> >>>
> >>> j
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 4:36 PM, Anthony Scopatz <scopatz at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hey Nathan,
> >>>>
> >>>> I think that this is generally good move.  Though I would encourage an
> >>>> authors page on the website which lists everyone who has contributed.
> >>>>
> >>>> Be Well
> >>>> Anthony
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 10:31 PM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com
> >
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 4:29 PM, Nathan Goldbaum
> >>>>> <nathan12343 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>> > Matt,
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Matthew Turk <
> matthewturk at gmail.com>
> >>>>> > wrote:
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> I am +1 on removing the author tags.  That being said, I
> consciously
> >>>>> >> decided *not* to, for basically two reasons which are somewhat
> >>>>> >> related.  The first is that I think removing the author tags will
> >>>>> >> disproportionately impact individuals who perhaps have contributed
> >>>>> >> specific files or analysis modules but have not contributed a
> large
> >>>>> >> quantity of code to the overall base of yt.  The second reason is
> >>>>> >> really my main one: I don't want to be as strongly associated with
> >>>>> >> yt
> >>>>> >> as I currently am.  Not because I don't have pride in it (I do),
> but
> >>>>> >> because I don't want people who aren't deep in the code
> development
> >>>>> >> to
> >>>>> >> believe that I'm the only person contributing, and I do not think
> >>>>> >> that
> >>>>> >> does favors for *anyone*.  (I still receive many emails off-list,
> >>>>> >> people say things to me that I have to correct about what yt is,
> etc
> >>>>> >> etc.)  It creates an impression of consolidation of
> responsibility,
> >>>>> >> as
> >>>>> >> well as undermines the credit that others receive for their
> >>>>> >> contributions.  Having names (that aren't mine) on source files
> >>>>> >> reduces the apparent consolidation.  I was leery of making such a
> >>>>> >> change, because removing names felt really wrong to me to do on my
> >>>>> >> own.
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > I'd argue that the yt = matt turk misconception is made worse by
> the
> >>>>> > author
> >>>>> > tags, since your name is on almost every file.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Then let's get rid of them.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >>
> >>>>> >> So, I'm fine with removing them if everyone else is too.  But I'd
> >>>>> >> also
> >>>>> >> like to trade this for having some type of mechanism for public
> >>>>> >> recognition of efforts.  (In addition to another paper, which is
> >>>>> >> probably still a bit off.)  Perhaps something like a core team, or
> >>>>> >> list of contributors, on the website?  Something that can be
> pointed
> >>>>> >> to, put on a CV, anything.
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Very much agreed.  I'd follow what the IPython project does, a list
> >>>>> > of core
> >>>>> > contributors on the website and list of *all* contributors for each
> >>>>> > release:
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> >
> http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/stable/about/license_and_copyright.html
> >>>>> >
> http://ipython.org/ipython-doc/stable/whatsnew/github-stats-1.0.html
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I like this a lot.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I've mentioned in IRC a few times that I'd like to re-do the
> homepage.
> >>>>>  If anyone wants to work on that, I'd be totally game.  I think
> having
> >>>>> something based on bootstrap with the "slate" theme might be nice; I
> >>>>> started sketching out something the other day.  One option would be
> to
> >>>>> move the *entire* homepage to Sphinx and just have a nice template
> for
> >>>>> the front page, similar to what IPython and others do.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Cheers,
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > Nathan
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> > _______________________________________________
> >>>>> > yt-dev mailing list
> >>>>> > yt-dev at lists.spacepope.org
> >>>>> > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org
> >>>>> >
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> yt-dev mailing list
> >>>>> yt-dev at lists.spacepope.org
> >>>>> http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
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