Developers of Sympa

[Guillaume Rousse <address@concealed>]

Le 18/04/2013 05:04, IKEDA Soji a écrit :
> Hi all again,
>
> On Wed, 10 Apr 2013 18:03:53 +0200
> Guillaume Rousse <address@concealed> wrote:
>
> > Le 10/04/2013 14:41, address@concealed a écrit :
> > > Revision
> > >      9082
> > > Author
> > >      sikeda
> > > Date
> > >      2013-04-10 14:41:16 +0200 (mer. 10 avril 2013)
> > >
> > >
> > >        Log Message
> > >
> > > [bug][#8066] [Submitted by X. Bachelot] FSF had moved.
> > Which is yet another reason to restart a discussion I once suggested: do
> > we really need to have so much duplicated informations in every file,
> > whereas a simple reference to a centralised verbatim copy of license,
> > copyright and authorship information would be enough ?
> >
> > That's just ugly to have 16 lines of legal information, whose usefulness
> > is not even proved, for a single line of code, such as  src/Makefile.am
> > file (sympa-cleanup branch) case, for instance.
> >
> > I've just checked automake source file, they refer to FSF web site,
> > which offers better perenity garanties than a postal address:
> > # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> > # along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
>
> I read GPL Howto:
>
>    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
>
> Accroding to this Howto, a "copyright notice" and a "statement of
> copying permission" should be added to "each source file" of program
> to use license (GPL) validly.
>
> * Sympa is the intellectual property as deliverables by RENATER.
>
>    Format and content of "copyright notice" would be decided
>    according to RENATER's policy.  So I withhold opinion about them.
>
> * Credit to authors cannot be a substitute for copyright notice.
>
>    Conversely, there may not be any problems of keeping it.
>
> * The Howto recommends "statement of copying permission" including
>    three paragraphs.
>
>    I suppose it would better to be added to all sources, regardless
>    to their sizes.
Just because it is written in a some document does not make it better 
for everyone. And I personnaly prefer "simplicity and consistency" over 
"FSF compliance". Especially as the current reality shows than:
1) maintaining this duplicated information is painful, and generally 
considered as useless
2) the associated risk is null: even with 11 years outdated legal 
statement, no one tried to sue Renater for copyright infrigement...

What we really need here is an authoritative and up-to-date copyright 
notice, as well as some ways of crediting authors and contributors 
correctly. I think everyone will agree here.

Now, the decision to blindly duplicate this information in every piece 
of file contained in Sympa repository has to be balanced against the 
fact than it will probably be outdated again in a few monthes...

--
Guillaume Rousse
INRIA, Direction des systèmes d'information
Domaine de Voluceau
Rocquencourt - BP 105
78153 Le Chesnay
Tel: 01 39 63 58 31

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