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To: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>
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Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Message-ID: <6c4ffd87-154b-3c11-e776-47b38f700fbf@telia.com>
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2019 22:59:02 +0100
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Simplify license headers
From: bjorn.x.larsson@telia.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Bj=c3=b6rn_Larsson?=)

Den 2019-01-28 kl. 16:38, skrev Zeev Suraski:
>> I would like to make two changes to this header:
>>
>> 1. Change "PHP Version 7" line to just "PHP", to avoid the necessity of updating this for
>> new major versions. I don't think the version information here is particularly useful to
>> anybody.
> I don't mind that much, but I don't see any issue with keeping it the way it is either.  It does look nicer the way it is now IMHO, and the cost associated with changing it twice a decade is, well, not very substantial.
>
>> 2. Remove the "Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group" line. Apart from requiring a
>> yearly update, this line is actually complete misinformation, because the PHP group
>> does *not* hold the copyright for the PHP source code. This would require a copyright
>> assignment agreement on behalf of all contributors, which we do not collect.
>>
>> We could also just drop the header entirely, I'm just proposing these two changes as
>> the path of least resistance towards getting the "annoying" parts removed.
> I'm no lawyer, but I do believe a case can be made for claiming that a person putting code into files with the header 'Copyright (c) XYZ', is in fact implicitly assigning copyright to XYZ.  So while it's not as strong as an explicit copyright assignment, and while it was never tested in court (and hopefully never will be) - I do see value in keeping it.  I certainly don't see a reason to change it after 20 years where it didn't seem to bother anybody, unless there's a strong reason to do that, which currently I don't see.
>
> Zeev

I think you have a very good point here. The license file also
refers to the PHP Group, so removing it in header files might
indirectly affect license statement.

r//Björn Larsson