[openfabrics-ewg] Copyright review of OpenFabrics (user space)

[Roland Dreier]

Oh yeah...

 > > For example, what makes the (8-line Makefile)
 > > 
 > >     branches/1.0/src/userspace/libmthca/debian/rules
 > > 
 > > proprietary?  If the Debian project, which is very careful about
 > > proper licensing, is willing to ship that file, is there really any
 > > reason to think that there is a license problem with it?

 > I can't answer for Debian's decision on this. My understanding is that
 > particular style of copyright is explicitly proprietary. 

I don't follow that.  The file I referred to has no copyright notice,
so I don't know what "style of copyright" would mean.  The libmthca
COPYING file also clearly applies to the whole package.

 > > Also, your list includes files like
 > > 
 > >     branches/1.0/src/userspace/libibverbs/debian/compat
 > > 
 > > as "No copyright (legally proprietary)."  That file is 2 bytes long --
 > > it has the character "5" and a newline.  Would you seriously expect a
 > > copyright notice and license included in that file?

 > We can choose to leave this and other such files with no copyright, and
 > thus legally proprietary, but it should be an explicit decision. 

This kind of gets to what I meant about common sense.  Are you
seriously suggesting that a 2 byte file with contents "5" could be
construed as an "original work of authorship?"  What about the
thousands of Debian packages that shipped "compat" files with the
contents "5" before libmthca existed?  Is libmthca violating someone's
copyright by stealing the character "5" from them?  Who is the
copyright holder for the file "5"?

With all due respect -- let's be serious.

 > However, some additional uses of COPYING are not so successful.
 >  In both the cases below, there are multiples files named COPYING inside
 > the same directory structure, and in both cases there are examples of
 > COPYING files which are self referential. This seems ambiguous at best,
 > and probably not what was intended.

OK -- this also gets to my original point.  If common sense is not
used in preparing the list, then the signal gets lost in the noise.

 - R.