[yt-dev] License switch: remove author tags

Sam Skillman samskillman at gmail.com
Tue Sep 10 14:35:36 PDT 2013


+1 on removal, +100 on author list(s). I'll stay out of the legal questions.

I verified that 'hg blame -u' on a "hg mv'd" file preserves the
line-by-line original author name, thus quenching my fear of hg mv's
obliterating the easy authorship lookup.

Sam



On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 2:23 PM, Anthony Scopatz <scopatz at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>> >>>>> >
>> >>>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> _______________________________________________
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>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
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>> >>
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