Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH] Remove ambiguities in the COPYING file; add CONTRIBUTING file

[Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2016, George Dunlap wrote:
> On 11/08/16 01:51, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Aug 2016, Lars Kurth wrote:
> >> COPYING file:
> >> The motivation of this change is to make it easier for new
> >> contributors to conduct a license and patent review, WITHOUT
> >> changing any licenses.
> >> - Remove references to BSD-style licenses as we have more
> >>   common license exceptions and replace with "other license
> >>   stanzas"
> >> - List the most common situations under which code is licensed
> >>   under licenses other than GPLv2 (section "Licensing Exceptions")
> >> - List the most common non-GPLv2 licenses that are in use in
> >>   this repository based on a recent FOSSology scan (section
> >>   "Licensing Exceptions")
> >> - List other license related conventions within the project
> >>   to make it easier to conduct a license review.
> >> - Clarify the incoming license as its omission has confused
> >>   past contributors (section "Contributions")
> >>
> >> CONTRIBUTION file:
> >> The motivation of this file is to make it easier for contributors
> >> to find contribution related resources. Add information on existing
> >> license related conventions to avoid unintentional future licensing
> >> issues. Provide templates for copyright headers for the most commonly
> >> used licenses in this repository.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>
> >> ---
> >>  CONTRIBUTING | 210 
> >> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >>  COPYING      |  64 ++++++++++++++----
> >>  2 files changed, 260 insertions(+), 14 deletions(-)
> >>  create mode 100644 CONTRIBUTING
> >>
> >> diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING b/CONTRIBUTING
> >> new file mode 100644
> >> index 0000000..7af13c4
> >> --- /dev/null
> >> +++ b/CONTRIBUTING
> >> @@ -0,0 +1,210 @@
> >> +
> >> +CONTRIBUTING
> >> +============
> >> +
> >> +INBOUND LICENSE
> >> +---------------
> >> +
> >> +Contributions are governed by the license that applies to relevant 
> >> +specific file or by the license specified in the COPYING file, that
> >              ^files
> 
> I think "file" is better here, as the license is on a file-by-file
> basis, not on a whole contribution basis.  That is, if your contribution
> changes a BSD file and a GPLv2 file in a single series (or a single
> patch), then the changes to the BSD file are goverened by the BSD
> licence, and the changes to the GPLv2 file are governed by the GPLv2.

OK, I understand the intention behind that sentence but it sounds odd to
me (possibly because I am not a native English speaker so if it is
technically correct, you might want to ignore my comment).
Shouldn't it be:

    to _a_ relevant specific file

?
 
 
> >> +governs the license of its containing directory and its subdirectories.
> >> +
> >> +Most of the Xen Project code is licensed under GPLv2, but a number of 
> >> +directories are primarily licensed under different licenses. 
> >                     ^ I would remove "primarily" from this sentence
> 
> "primarily licensed under different licenses" implies to me that most of
> the files in the directory are under a different license, but some may
> be licensed GPLv2.  Without the "primarily" I would take that to imply
> that *none* of the files are licensed GPLv2.
> 
> If there is at least one directory that has mostly non-GPLv2 files but
> at least one GPLv2 file, or we anticipate that such directories might
> exist in the future, I would leave the "primarily" in.  If there aren't
> any now and we don't expect any in the future, then yes it's unnecessary
> and should probably be removed.

Good point

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