Re: Patch for Copyright Notices in maintain.texi [WAS: Re: Approving Dezyne, savannah task 16067]

[Ineiev]

On Tue, Jun 20, 2023 at 05:08:41AM -0400, Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
>        notice in each nontrivial file in the package.  As a rule of thumb,
>        any interesting file more than ten lines long should be considered and
>        could be nontrivial for this purpose.  This includes header files

It seems to me, if a file isn't interesting, it just doesn't belong
in the package; if a rule (of thumb) is referred to, it may make sense
to explain it.

>        If a header can be added without any complications that is always
>        preferred; please make a balanced choice here.  The important thing to
>        keep in mind is that there cannot be any discussion about the
>        copyright and license status of any file.  For example, a whole
>        directory tree with a similar layout such as a test suite with
>        generated baseline data should probably use one toplevel @file{README}
>        file describing how to generate the test baseline data, instead of
>        hundreds of similar or identical @file{README} files.

In such case, if a small part of the testsuite is copied, there can be
a discussion about the copyright and license status of any file; I think
the concept of the balance adds uncertainty because the relative values
of clear legal status vs. developer's convenience will be subjective.

>        Another example is small code snippets that are included verbatim in
>        the (texinfo) documentation and can also be processed directly by the
>        program being documented.  Because the example is included as an
>        integral part of the documentation, it is covered automatically by the
>        copyright and license of the manual.  Adding a @file{README} file in
>        this case is encouraged.

I believe this isn't consistent with the GPL HowTo
<https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html#why-license-notices>:

        If a release has one statement that “This program is
        released under license FOO,” in a central place such as the
        README file, that makes the situation clear for that
        release. However, programmers often copy source files from
        one free program into another. If a source file contains no
        statement about what its license is, then moving it into
        another context eliminates all trace of that point. This
        invites confusion and error.

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