Copyright message for 1.20.2?

[Tito]

On Thursday 12 July 2012 21:29:44 Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> Michael D. Setzer II wrote:
> >> >> 630c630
> >> >> <                       "Copyright (C) 1998-2012 Erik Andersen, Rob 
> >> >> Landley, Denys Vlasenko\n"
> >> >> ---
> >> >>>                       "Copyright (C) 1998-2011 Erik Andersen, Rob 
> >> >> Landley, Denys Vlasenko\n"
> >> >> Took a little searching to find which file it was in.  I'm assuming
> >> >> it should be 2012, but there might be a reason it is changed, or
> >> >> might just be it is to minor of an issue?
> 
> > On Thursday 12 July 2012 03:16:32 Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
> >> We should probably be careful here in that notice to make sure it's
> >> abundantly accurate.  Specifically, it would be better if we were
> >> clearer about the years.  For example, I am quite sure Erik hasn't
> >> made any contributions in 2012, and maybe not in 2011 either.
> >> 
> >> It should probably be something like:
> >>  "Copyright (C) 1998-<SOME_YEAR> Erik Andersen,
> >>   (C) SOME_YEAR-SOME_YEAR Rob Landley, (C) SOME_YEAR-2012 Denys Vlasenko."
> 
> Tito wrote at 01:36 (EDT):
> > maybe "Copyright (C) 1998-2012 by the Busybox project developers" and
> > then adding a full list to the source package and to the website could
> > be a solution.
> 
> There is a problem with this, although I don't think it's the concern
> Alain raised is correct (more on that below).
> 
> The main value in having a good copyright notice *in the binary* is, as
> I mentioned: when binary distributions occur, it's slightly easier in an
> enforcement action to trivially identify that the copyright holders'
> rights have been infringed.  I've suggested an alternative below that
> would probably serve this purpose.

Hi,
it is also trivial to change this line if you have enough criminal energy ;-)


> But, the main problem with the idea above "The BusyBox Project
> Developers" isn't a legal entity per se.  BusyBox is part of the
> Conservancy, which does hold a few copyrights that have been assigned to
> it by a few developers, so we *could* list Conservancy in the list if we
> want.  But, that aside, listing a copyright notice that is a name that
> is *not* a real legal corporate entity or individual is pointless.
> 
> Therefore, my suggestion now is to change this:
>  "Copyright (C) 1998-2012 Erik Andersen, Rob Landley, Denys Vlasenko\n"
>   "and others. Licensed under GPLv2.\n"
>   "See source distribution for full notice.\n"
> to this:
>   "BusyBox is copyrighted by many authors between 1998-2012.\n"
>   "Licensed under GPLv2. See source distribution for detailed\n"
>   "copyright notices.\n"
>       

This is ok for me if the lawyers ack it.

> That may be the best option, really.  What do people think?
> 
> The trade-off here is really down to bytes that end up in the binary.
> Ideally, we'd list all the copyright notices that Michael Setzer found
> with his sed script, but that's 400 lines of copyright notices and
> that's surely too much for the binary.

I would add this cleaned up list to source tough.

> Ultimately, though, I think it's up to the community to decide what key
> copyright holders we want to list in the binary officially.
> 
> Alain Mouette wrote:
> >>> This is not good. In case of a court dispute, all copyright owners
> >>> have to be present. So if you want the copyright do be good for
> >>> something, it has to be nominal!
> 
> Alain, I'm not sure I understand your point.  Any given copyright holder
> can enforce the license -- Denys, Erik, and Conservancy together as
> copyright holders do this often without involvement of other copyright
> holders.  Having more copyright holders involved in GPL enforcement is
> good, and if other copyright holders want to be involved, they should of
> course contact me and I can get you all setup (the advantage to this is
> you also get direct input into the process of how Conservancy does
> enforcement).
> 
> However, it's not required that all copyright holders be present to act.
> As a practical matter, you need enough copyright holders present such
> that your copyrights can't be trivially written out by a GPL violator,
> but with Conservancy, Erik, and Denys, we meet that bar easily already
> on BusyBox.
> 
> Meanwhile, it's also not required that the notices appear perfectly in
> the copyright material, either.  Notices are helpful for the reasons I
> explained above, but they aren't mandatory.
> 
> As usual, IANAL, TINLA, etc.
>