Re: copyright notice question

Mehmet Erol Sanliturk wrote:
>On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 4:04 AM Rick Macklem <rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca<mailto:rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca>> wrote:
>>Warner Losh wrote:
>>>On Mon, Oct 19, 2020, 7:25 PM Rick Macklem <rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca<mailto:rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca><mailto:rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca<mailto:rmacklem_at_uoguelph.ca>>> wrote:
>>>>I'll admit I've hesitated to ask this for a long time, but I guess I have to;-)
>>>>I've created two daemons for NFS-over-TLS, using the code in
>>>>/usr/src/usr.sbin/gssd/gssd.c as a starting point.
>>>>--> As such, I left the copyright notice from this file on the two files.
>>>>      (As you can see, it is a 2 clause FreeBSD one, so the terms aren't
>>>>       an issue.)
>>>>
>>>>What I am wondering is if I should be adding my name to it as an
>>>>additional author or something like that?
>>>>(I don't care, but it does seem a little weird that the copyright is held
>>>> by Isilon Inc, since I have no connection to them.)
>>>
>>>Likely. If you changed a substantial amount, then yes. The rule of thumb is >50%
>>> is no brainer yes. Smaller percentages require more nuanced judgement as to whether the changes are substantial enough to create a new work. Chances are
>>> quite good you fall into one of those categories. Also, if you have replaced more
>>>than ~90% chances are good no original work remains. Again, a judgement call.
>>>There are more technical legal guidelines, but that would require a lawyer.
>>>
>>>My hunch is that unless this is something far more trivial than I then I'd add the
>>> notice, but retaining the old.
>>Well, I'd guess it's somewhere in the 50->90% category.
>>Would just adding a comment below the current copyright notice like:
>>/*
>> * Extensively modified from /usr/src/usr.sbin/gssd.c for RPC-over-TLS
>> * by Rick Macklem.
>> */
>>be sufficient for the project, or should I put a second copyright notice
>>on it with my name on it? (This will seem odd, since it will have the same
>>terms as the extant one, but if that is what is appropriate for the project..)
>>
>>It is my understanding (I'm obviously not a lawyer, clearly indicated by the
>>size of my bank account;-) that a copyright notice can only be changed by
>>the holder (or with their express permission), but an additional copyright
>>notice can be attached to the work to cover the re-write.
>>Is this correct? (All amateur lawyers, feel free to respond;-)
>>
>>Thanks for your comments, rick
>>
>>>Warnet
>>
[copyright comment snipped]
>My opinion is as follows :
>
>At the top of the related sources I would include a message ( approximately ) as >follows :
I believe for FreeBSD this would need to be after the main copyright notice,
but that is trivial, I think?


>After svn ( or git ) modification number(s)  ... ( including )  I have made substantial ( or significant ) modifications ( or improvements ) .
>The copyright of these modifications with the present license listed below are >belong to
>
>Rick Macklem , starting from date .....
> (  Rick Macklem  ... an approximately fixed address ... )
Does anyone know if there are examples of this in other major open
source projects?

I would be very shy of creating a notice that is not exactly what other
FreeBSD files have in them. For one thing, is referring to license terms in another
copyright notice "standard practice"?

I'll admit that, unless there are examples of this elsewhere in the FreeBSD
source tree (or at least in other major open source projects), I would not be
comfortable doing this.

Maybe I'll try asking this question...
Is there a concern that the copyright notice that is on gssd.c could be considered
"not valid" due to the extensive changes made to the code by me?
(If the answer to that is "no", then I don't see that anything needs to be done,
 since the notice includes reasonable terms as already used elsewhere in FreeBSD.
 I have no interest in being a copyright holder for this unless the copyright can
 be invalidated.)
Put another way, "Is there a concern that the extensive changes would allow the
copyright notice be replaced by something like a GPL ?".

rick, who would rather just lease the notice alone



Each contributor may append such notifications listed on the topmost part .
When a person reads such sources , she/he very easily understands its modification and copyright status without any doubt .


Mehmet Erol Sanliturk