Re: [openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
Sorry for the noise folks - the change was well-intentioned but uninformed! We will revert the changes. Thanks, Matt -Original Message- From: Jeremy Stanley Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2018 12:00 PM To: openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org Cc: MCEUEN, MATT Subject: [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers [Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I am not representing the OpenStack Foundation in any legal capacity here.] TL;DR: You should not be putting "Copyright OpenStack Foundation" on content in Git repositories, or anywhere else for that matter (unless you know that you are actually an employee of the OSF or otherwise performing work-for-hire activities at the behest of the OSF). The OpenStack Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) does not require copyright assignment. The foundation does not want, nor does it even generally accept, copyright assignment from developers. Your copyrightable contributions are your own, or by proxy are the copyright of your employer if you have created them as a part of any work-for-hire arrangement (unless you've negotiated with your employer to retain copyright of your work). This topic has been raised multiple times in the past. In the wake of a somewhat protracted thread on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org mailing list (it actually started out on the openstack-dev mailing list but was then redirected to a more appropriate venue) back in April, 2013, we attempted to record a summary in the wiki article we'd been maintaining regarding various frequently-asked legal questions: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers In the intervening years, we've worked to make sure other important documentation moves out of the wiki and into more durable maintenance (mostly Git repositories under code review, rendered and published to a Web site). I propose that as this particular topic is germane to contributing to the development of OpenStack software, the OpenStack Technical Committee should publish a statement on the governance site similar in nature to or perhaps as an expansion of the https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html page where we detail copyright licensing expectations for official OpenStack project team deliverables. As I look back through that wiki article, I see a few other sections which may also be appropriate to cover on the governance site. The reason I'm re-raising this age-old discussion is because change https://review.openstack.org/596619 came to my attention a few minutes ago, in which some 400+ files within the openstack/openstack-helm repository were updated to assign copyright to "OpenStack Foundation" based on this discussion from an openstack-helm IRC meeting back in March (which seems to have involved no legal representative of the OSF): http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101 There are also a couple of similar changes under the same review topic for the openstack/openstack-helm-infra and openstack/openstack-helm-addons repositories, one of which I managed to -1 before it could be approved and merged. I don't recall any follow-up discussion on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org or even openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org mailing lists, which I would have expected for any change of this legal significance. The point of this message is of course not to berate anyone, but to raise the example which seems to indicate that as a community we've apparently not done a great job of communicating the legal aspects of contributing to OpenStack. If there are no objections, I'll push up a proposed addition to the openstack/governance repository addressing this semi-frequent misconception and follow up with a link to the review. I'm also going to post to the legal-discuss ML so as to make the subscribers there aware of this thread. -- Jeremy Stanley __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
On 2018-08-28 10:11:18 -0700 (-0700), John Dickinson wrote: [...] > It would be *really* helpful to have a simple rule or pattern for > each file's header. Something like "Copyright (c) created>-present by contributors to this project". I applaud and share your desire for a clear rule on such things. Sadly, I have serious doubts it's possible to get one. > As you mentioned, this issue comes up about every two years, and having > contributors police (via code review) the appropriate headers for every > commit is not a sustainable pattern. The only thing I'm sure about is that > the existing copyright headers are not correct, but I have no idea what the > correct header are. The point was not really for reviewers (who can't necessarily know whether or not a copyright claim is in any way legitimate), but rather for authors (please don't assign copyright of your works to the OSF). -- Jeremy Stanley signature.asc Description: PGP signature __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
In this context, there's also the question of copyright headers for
documentation files which we do not require - see
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Documentation/Copyright
This came up recently with:
https://review.openstack.org/#/c/593662/
I'm happy to see a canonical place for this information,
Andreas
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Re: [openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
Excerpts from Jeremy Stanley's message of 2018-08-28 16:59:56 +: > [Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, > and I am not representing the OpenStack Foundation in any legal > capacity here.] > > TL;DR: You should not be putting "Copyright OpenStack Foundation" on > content in Git repositories, or anywhere else for that matter > (unless you know that you are actually an employee of the OSF or > otherwise performing work-for-hire activities at the behest of the > OSF). The OpenStack Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) > does not require copyright assignment. The foundation does not want, > nor does it even generally accept, copyright assignment from > developers. Your copyrightable contributions are your own, or by > proxy are the copyright of your employer if you have created them as > a part of any work-for-hire arrangement (unless you've negotiated > with your employer to retain copyright of your work). > > This topic has been raised multiple times in the past. In the wake > of a somewhat protracted thread on the > legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org mailing list (it actually started > out on the openstack-dev mailing list but was then redirected to a > more appropriate venue) back in April, 2013, we attempted to record > a summary in the wiki article we'd been maintaining regarding > various frequently-asked legal questions: > https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers > > In the intervening years, we've worked to make sure other important > documentation moves out of the wiki and into more durable > maintenance (mostly Git repositories under code review, rendered and > published to a Web site). I propose that as this particular topic is > germane to contributing to the development of OpenStack software, > the OpenStack Technical Committee should publish a statement on the > governance site similar in nature to or perhaps as an expansion of > the https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html > page where we detail copyright licensing expectations for official > OpenStack project team deliverables. As I look back through that > wiki article, I see a few other sections which may also be > appropriate to cover on the governance site. > > The reason I'm re-raising this age-old discussion is because change > https://review.openstack.org/596619 came to my attention a few > minutes ago, in which some 400+ files within the > openstack/openstack-helm repository were updated to assign copyright > to "OpenStack Foundation" based on this discussion from an > openstack-helm IRC meeting back in March (which seems to have > involved no legal representative of the OSF): > http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101 It's also not OK to simply change the copyright assignment for content written by someone else without their approval. That's why we tend not to go back and update existing copyright assignments in the source files anywhere, it's usually too hard to ensure we have everyone's +1. > > There are also a couple of similar changes under the same review > topic for the openstack/openstack-helm-infra and > openstack/openstack-helm-addons repositories, one of which I managed > to -1 before it could be approved and merged. I don't recall any > follow-up discussion on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org or > even openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org mailing lists, which I would > have expected for any change of this legal significance. > > The point of this message is of course not to berate anyone, but to > raise the example which seems to indicate that as a community we've > apparently not done a great job of communicating the legal aspects > of contributing to OpenStack. If there are no objections, I'll push > up a proposed addition to the openstack/governance repository > addressing this semi-frequent misconception and follow up with a > link to the review. I'm also going to post to the legal-discuss ML > so as to make the subscribers there aware of this thread. Yes, please do propose that documentation update in the governance repo. I wonder if we should address this at all in the contributors' guide, too? Perhaps just to link to the published governance docs. Doug __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
Re: [openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
On 28 Aug 2018, at 9:59, Jeremy Stanley wrote: [Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I am not representing the OpenStack Foundation in any legal capacity here.] TL;DR: You should not be putting "Copyright OpenStack Foundation" on content in Git repositories, or anywhere else for that matter (unless you know that you are actually an employee of the OSF or otherwise performing work-for-hire activities at the behest of the OSF). The OpenStack Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) does not require copyright assignment. The foundation does not want, nor does it even generally accept, copyright assignment from developers. Your copyrightable contributions are your own, or by proxy are the copyright of your employer if you have created them as a part of any work-for-hire arrangement (unless you've negotiated with your employer to retain copyright of your work). This topic has been raised multiple times in the past. In the wake of a somewhat protracted thread on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org mailing list (it actually started out on the openstack-dev mailing list but was then redirected to a more appropriate venue) back in April, 2013, we attempted to record a summary in the wiki article we'd been maintaining regarding various frequently-asked legal questions: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers In the intervening years, we've worked to make sure other important documentation moves out of the wiki and into more durable maintenance (mostly Git repositories under code review, rendered and published to a Web site). I propose that as this particular topic is germane to contributing to the development of OpenStack software, the OpenStack Technical Committee should publish a statement on the governance site similar in nature to or perhaps as an expansion of the https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html page where we detail copyright licensing expectations for official OpenStack project team deliverables. As I look back through that wiki article, I see a few other sections which may also be appropriate to cover on the governance site. The reason I'm re-raising this age-old discussion is because change https://review.openstack.org/596619 came to my attention a few minutes ago, in which some 400+ files within the openstack/openstack-helm repository were updated to assign copyright to "OpenStack Foundation" based on this discussion from an openstack-helm IRC meeting back in March (which seems to have involved no legal representative of the OSF): http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101 There are also a couple of similar changes under the same review topic for the openstack/openstack-helm-infra and openstack/openstack-helm-addons repositories, one of which I managed to -1 before it could be approved and merged. I don't recall any follow-up discussion on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org or even openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org mailing lists, which I would have expected for any change of this legal significance. The point of this message is of course not to berate anyone, but to raise the example which seems to indicate that as a community we've apparently not done a great job of communicating the legal aspects of contributing to OpenStack. If there are no objections, I'll push up a proposed addition to the openstack/governance repository addressing this semi-frequent misconception and follow up with a link to the review. I'm also going to post to the legal-discuss ML so as to make the subscribers there aware of this thread. -- Jeremy Stanley It would be *really* helpful to have a simple rule or pattern for each file's header. Something like "Copyright (c) created>-present by contributors to this project". As you mentioned, this issue comes up about every two years, and having contributors police (via code review) the appropriate headers for every commit is not a sustainable pattern. The only thing I'm sure about is that the existing copyright headers are not correct, but I have no idea what the correct header are. --John __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
[openstack-dev] [all][tc][openstack-helm] On the problem of OSF copyright headers
[Obligatory disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and I am not representing the OpenStack Foundation in any legal capacity here.] TL;DR: You should not be putting "Copyright OpenStack Foundation" on content in Git repositories, or anywhere else for that matter (unless you know that you are actually an employee of the OSF or otherwise performing work-for-hire activities at the behest of the OSF). The OpenStack Individual Contributor License Agreement (ICLA) does not require copyright assignment. The foundation does not want, nor does it even generally accept, copyright assignment from developers. Your copyrightable contributions are your own, or by proxy are the copyright of your employer if you have created them as a part of any work-for-hire arrangement (unless you've negotiated with your employer to retain copyright of your work). This topic has been raised multiple times in the past. In the wake of a somewhat protracted thread on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org mailing list (it actually started out on the openstack-dev mailing list but was then redirected to a more appropriate venue) back in April, 2013, we attempted to record a summary in the wiki article we'd been maintaining regarding various frequently-asked legal questions: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#OpenStack_Foundation_Copyright_Headers In the intervening years, we've worked to make sure other important documentation moves out of the wiki and into more durable maintenance (mostly Git repositories under code review, rendered and published to a Web site). I propose that as this particular topic is germane to contributing to the development of OpenStack software, the OpenStack Technical Committee should publish a statement on the governance site similar in nature to or perhaps as an expansion of the https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html page where we detail copyright licensing expectations for official OpenStack project team deliverables. As I look back through that wiki article, I see a few other sections which may also be appropriate to cover on the governance site. The reason I'm re-raising this age-old discussion is because change https://review.openstack.org/596619 came to my attention a few minutes ago, in which some 400+ files within the openstack/openstack-helm repository were updated to assign copyright to "OpenStack Foundation" based on this discussion from an openstack-helm IRC meeting back in March (which seems to have involved no legal representative of the OSF): http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/openstack_helm/2018/openstack_helm.2018-03-20-15.00.log.html#l-101 There are also a couple of similar changes under the same review topic for the openstack/openstack-helm-infra and openstack/openstack-helm-addons repositories, one of which I managed to -1 before it could be approved and merged. I don't recall any follow-up discussion on the legal-disc...@lists.openstack.org or even openstack-dev@lists.openstack.org mailing lists, which I would have expected for any change of this legal significance. The point of this message is of course not to berate anyone, but to raise the example which seems to indicate that as a community we've apparently not done a great job of communicating the legal aspects of contributing to OpenStack. If there are no objections, I'll push up a proposed addition to the openstack/governance repository addressing this semi-frequent misconception and follow up with a link to the review. I'm also going to post to the legal-discuss ML so as to make the subscribers there aware of this thread. -- Jeremy Stanley signature.asc Description: PGP signature __ OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions) Unsubscribe: openstack-dev-requ...@lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
