[yt-dev] License switch: remove author tags

Tue Sep 10 14:14:33 PDT 2013

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
>>>>> >
>>>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>>>> > http://lists.spacepope.org/listinfo.cgi/yt-dev-spacepope.org
>>>>> >
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