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Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2019 23:37:07 +0100
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To: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Simplify license headers
From: nikita.ppv@gmail.com (Nikita Popov)

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On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 4:38 PM Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com> wrote:

>
> > 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
>

No, this case cannot be made. You are likely mixing up licensing and
copyright here. Licensing (in the absence of a CLA) follows the
inbound=outbound principle, i.e., it is understood that inbound
contributions are made under the same terms as the outbound license.
However (in the absence of a copyright assignment agreement) each
contributor retains copyright for their contributions.

And while this may not bother you personally, this discussion comes up
every single year when the inevitable year increment PRs start rolling in.
The most recent one for 2019 is https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/3730,
which triggered this mail. I am rather predisposed against commits that
touch a large part of the codebase to make a change that is not just wholly
unnecessary, but also legally extremely dubious.

Nikita

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