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Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2019 12:17:45 +0100
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To: Derick Rethans <derick@php.net>
Cc: Zeev Suraski <zeev@zend.com>, Nikita Popov <nikita.ppv@gmail.com>, 
	PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] Simplify license headers
From: peterkokot@gmail.com (Peter Kokot)

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On Mon, 4 Feb 2019, 02:32 Peter Kokot <peterkokot@gmail.com wrote:

> On Wed, 30 Jan 2019 at 13:57, Derick Rethans <derick@php.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 28 Jan 2019, Zeev Suraski 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.
> >
> > It could be changed to "1997-present" though, in which case it doesn't
> > need updating once a year (and messing up history in VCS).
> >
> > cheers,
> > Derick
> >
> > --
> > PHP Internals - PHP Runtime Development Mailing List
> > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
> >
>
> Hello,
>
> I've prepared quick pull request [1] that fixes the missed headers in
> source code files and additionally bumps or changes the year range on
> other places.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1.) What should "php -v" output regarding copyrights and year ranges?
> 2.) What should "man php" include under the COPYRIGHT section
> regarding the year ranges?
> 3.) Similarly, should there be a common pattern for places like
> phpinfo() output?
>
> Thanks.
>
> [1] https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/3791
>
> --
> Peter Kokot
>

The pull request with a quickfix [1] to sync the year ranges will be merged
this weekend if everyone's ok with this... So now, only the LICENSE file
optionally gets bumped the year ranges and that simplifies managing files
significantly for the better. Thank you.

[1] https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/3791

>

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