On Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 04:16:09PM +0100, Martin Kletzander wrote:
I know this probably got answered somewhere, but I've never
gotten
any when asking myself. So let me use this opportunity.
Because I really despise useless processes and duplicated
information I always hated the way all the "mandatory" file headers.
As far as I understand it's related to the fact that the file itself
used to be the only source of information about where the code came
from. Nowadays we have more information in git.
The reason all this is happening is to be able to prove that there
is traceable source of the code, right? I, personally, do not
really like when you get couple of lines of repeated information on
every start of the tool (`bc` should only ever be ran with `-q` for
any sane person). In my opinion that is never going to help any
user.
All of this comes down to whether you prove the above if push comes
to shove. GPL talks about the headers and where are all the places
you *should* put the copyright notices and license information. But
I think it comes to the "should" and since it is written "to make
lawyers more confident" about 30 years ago it might've kept some of
the reservations from that era.
Finally the question: How much of a problem would it be if we just
limited the information in file headers to minimum and pointed
people to git history and central license?
Sorry for making you read all this, but I feel like you're very
knowledgeable and I struggle with this on a regular basis, so some
consensus would help me.
Questions of a legal nature should be addressed to and answered by
lawyers, but it's my current understanding that we need the
boilerplate in files to make a cast iron assertion of copyright,
licensing and warranty conditions. Until a lawyer (from RH Legal in
this case) tells me otherwise, I'm afraid we need to keep the
boilerplate.
Rich.
--
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