Re: [Geany-devel] AUTHORS THANKS files
Am 23.09.2011 05:33, schrieb Matthew Brush: On a similar topic, I noticed in the source files, on top of the license in the comments, some files list Nick and Enrico as the copyright holders, some also have Frank, others Colomban, and yet others Lex (and maybe others still). It seems as though if you contribute significant portions of code to a file, you should add your own copyright blurb in the comments? Would it not make more sense to have a single copyright holder for all files in the project, be it a person (ie. the current lead/maintainer), or an organization (ie. The Geany Software Foundation :) Copyright assignment is seen as a bad thing generally. Why would you want to give up rights on your code? Also, if someone contributes a significant amount of code to one or more files, does that mean they hand-over the copyright of that code to one (or maybe all?) of those people listed in the various file headers? The reason I ask about the copyright thing is that I'm currently working on something that basically adds entirely new files and I wasn't sure if I should add my own copyright blurb in the fileheader or that of someone else. It almost seems like currently the copyright blurbs in the file header comments are more like an Authorship or Attribution than copyright. You should definitely do that. You own the copyright, and no other author. And code can't have no copyright holder (unless auto generated perhaps). And you should defintely add yourself for significant changes. I think it might be useful to put some information about this in the HACKING file so that contributors clearly know whether to put their own copyright in the header, or if not, who's name/info to pass the copyright on to. Also whether they should add their names to the AUTHORS file, or THANKS file, and whether they should update the ChangeLog (if that sticks around) and to update the documentation. It also wouldn't hurt to mention in there that all of the submitted code will become/has to be GPL, just in case that's not clear. We're coders after all, not law talkin guys. It's implicitely GPL if you're editing GPL code. That's a) due to copyleft and b) patches generally don't relicense. For new files it's actually up to you. You can submit it under GPL, or some other license. It's up to the committer to accept the license (or to relicense before submitting). Best regards. ___ Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
Re: [Geany-devel] saving plugin settings in a project file
Am 21.09.2011 18:01, schrieb Dimitar Zhekov: On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:18:14 +0400 Alexander Petukhovde...@apetukhov.ru wrote: What I wanted was to have debug settings loaded at the same time I open files I worked with last time. [...] but now I realize that I can store debug settings for a session in plugins own config, where all other plugin level stuff reside and if a user works with a project - store debug settings in a project, [...] What you need is debug sessions, and they depend on the executable being debugged. It doesn't make sense to use the same breakpoints, watches etc. for more than one program, or two sets of these for the same program. I disagree with the very last statement. If you're working at the same project in different branches you might want to debug different parts. And if you have a project/session file per branch then it even matches with debug sessions. I think you can store the debug session settings in the plugin main and only configuration file, with section names dependent on the full executable name, for example it's md5 sum: /home/build/projects/testing/geany - [945b93c3fe68a0fe63ac6e8e528c59a5] ...settings... /home/build/source/fnatools/fnstofna - [1b216f36ac78dd903085214692c821cc] ...settings... etc. Note that the projects sessions do not necessarily match the debug sessions - for example, a project may produce several executable files, and they will not share the same debugging session. That's what I said in the other mail. I think debug sessions is overengineering it, adding complexity for little value. Bes regards. ___ Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
Re: [Geany-devel] AUTHORS THANKS files
Hi Matthew, As threatened... On 23 September 2011 13:33, Matthew Brush mbr...@codebrainz.ca wrote: Hi, I was just looking at these files for some reason and a few things struck me as kind of odd. The header of the THANKS file says: This file lists all *external* people that have contributed to this project. (emphasis added) which sounds kind of odd. For example, it seems all of the core developers and regular contributors are listed here. I don't even think of myself as external, let alone Nick, Frank and Colomban and many others in the list. And then in AUTHORS, it lists the core developers, and then under Regular Contributors it lists only two people. I'm curious what the criteria for being a Regular Contributor is, since I've seen a bunch of regular contributions on the ML and patch tracker, many of which were made by people other than those two people. At first I thought it might be people who have SVN commit access, but then there's the COMMITTERS file, so that's not it I don't think. IMHO, anyone in the THANKS file that has actually authored any code or translations should be listed in AUTHORS. I suspect that these files are rather confused due to lack of love. IMHO if these are not going to be kept up to date they better be deleted. If they are going to be kept up to date, now before release is the time. IMHO thanks should be *everyone* [1]. The distinction of Authors is questionable to me, it certainly doesn't fulfil the purpose the FSF uses it for [2]. Committers is , well, the committers, not sure why we scruffy mob need to be acknowledged separately though. On a similar topic, I noticed in the source files, on top of the license in the comments, some files list Nick and Enrico as the copyright holders, some also have Frank, others Colomban, and yet others Lex (and maybe others still). It seems as though if you contribute significant portions of code to a file, you should add your own copyright blurb in the comments? Would it not make more sense to have a single copyright holder for all files in the project, be it a person (ie. the current lead/maintainer), or an organization (ie. The Geany Software Foundation :) Copyright assignment is used by some projects but as you say there needs to be a legal entity to receive it. And what country would this legal entity exist in? Who would own it and how wold it be run and paid for. And legal paperwork is needed for contributions, including employer disclaimer (to prove they don't own the software you write). All in all N. Copyright law isn't uniform around the world, but I have been advised that the most common is that: 1. the originator has copyright whether they want it or not, and usually automatically without having to claim it 2. the copyright holder can license the work under any license (or more than one) 3. the year isn't needed to claim copyright, but to indicate when the copyright terminates (given the lifetime of software this is moot) Someone who submits a patch no matter how small or large and whether they commit it directly or someone else commits it, they still own copyright in that patch, but by submitting it for inclusion in a GPLed work implicitly allow it to be released under that license and this cannot be withdrawn. The best advice I have is that such contributions need to be listed somewhere with any source release and the changelog (for tarballs) and the repository history (for online) is ok, so long as they note the original contributor and the file header acknowledges the copyright of such contributions. Our header does not and technically Enrico, Nick et al are claiming copyright of material they have no right to, so it should be changed to acknowledge such contributions as a group. Then the header copyright notices do not need to be updated in any way. When I made significant changes to build.c I added myself to the header to make it clear that I owned copyright to material in the file and that I explicitly allowed that material to be released under the GPL, but I was too lazy to do it to all files with only minor contributions[3], but if we had a general notice that wouldn't be needed. Also, if someone contributes a significant amount of code to one or more files, does that mean they hand-over the copyright of that code to one (or maybe all?) of those people listed in the various file headers? Too complex, and who? The reason I ask about the copyright thing is that I'm currently working on something that basically adds entirely new files and I wasn't sure if I should add my own copyright blurb in the fileheader or that of someone else. It almost seems like currently the copyright blurbs in the file header comments are more like an Authorship or Attribution than copyright. For whole new files you own the entire copyright so you should put yourself. If you copy code from elsewhere you need to acknowledge that too. You should use the same header as
Re: [Geany-devel] AUTHORS THANKS files
On 09/23/2011 06:40 PM, Lex Trotman wrote: Hi Matthew, As threatened... Heh, thanks, they're good details that confirm what I've observed from various other projects. I was just looking at these files for some reason [...] I suspect that these files are rather confused due to lack of love. IMHO if these are not going to be kept up to date they better be deleted. Given the other information you provided, I'd say, at least after the Git switch that the AUTHORS (and COMMITTERS) files should just be generated from git log for tarballs. If someone just provides a plain diff for a patch, you can still set the author to them (not sure can SVN do this?). If they send a pull request/git format-patch it's automatic. If they are going to be kept up to date, now before release is the time. IMHO thanks should be *everyone* [1]. Seems to make sense, though it could be a pain. IMO, the bug number that's currently used (I think) is enough for bug/feature tracker stuff. Otherwise, you'd have a lot of these in the THANKS file: ... Anonymous http://accounts.google.com - reported some bug Anonymous no known email address - requested some feature ... On a similar topic, I noticed in the source files, on top of the license in the comments, some files list Nick and Enrico as the copyright holders, some [...] Copyright assignment is used by some projects but as you say there needs to be a legal entity to receive it. And what country would this legal entity exist in? Who would own it and how wold it be run and paid for. And legal paperwork is needed for contributions, including employer disclaimer (to prove they don't own the software you write). All in all N. For Geany I would've said the project lead/maintainer with the copyrights getting transferred when the person filling that role changes. But yeah, way too much hassle for all the legal requirements. Copyright law isn't uniform around the world, but I have been advised that the most common is that: 1. the originator has copyright whether they want it or not, and usually automatically without having to claim it Which means just having a proper VCS log (with proper author) would be enough to track all the bits and pieces of who owns copyright on what? Seems like that would be better than listing every single copyright info for everyone who ever changed the file. If the ChangeLog is generated from the VCS log, IIUC it will have all the required info for tarballs. Also, if someone contributes a significant amount of code to one or more files, does that mean they hand-over the copyright of that code to one (or maybe all?) of those people listed in the various file headers? Too complex, and who? Ok, just was curious whether the act of submitting code to the Geany project implicitly signed over copyright. I guess it doesn't work like that :) Thanks again! Cheers, Matthew Brush ___ Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
Re: [Geany-devel] AUTHORS THANKS files
On 09/23/2011 10:46 AM, Thomas Martitz wrote: Am 23.09.2011 05:33, schrieb Matthew Brush: On a similar topic, I noticed in the source files, on top of the license in the comments, some files list Nick and Enrico as the copyright holders, some also have Frank, others Colomban, and yet others Lex (and maybe others still). It seems as though if you contribute significant portions of code to a file, you should add your own copyright blurb in the comments? Would it not make more sense to have a single copyright holder for all files in the project, be it a person (ie. the current lead/maintainer), or an organization (ie. The Geany Software Foundation :) Copyright assignment is seen as a bad thing generally. Why would you want to give up rights on your code? I really don't care who owns the copyright TBH, as long as I can always freely use the code I have on my hard-drive. The reason I ask about the copyright thing is that I'm currently working on something that basically adds entirely new files and I wasn't sure if I should add my own copyright blurb in the fileheader or that of someone else. It almost seems like currently the copyright blurbs in the file header comments are more like an Authorship or Attribution than copyright. You should definitely do that. You own the copyright, and no other author. And code can't have no copyright holder (unless auto generated perhaps). And you should defintely add yourself for significant changes. Good to know. I think it might be useful to put some information about this in the HACKING file so that contributors clearly know whether to put their own copyright in the header, or if not, who's name/info to pass the copyright on to. Also whether they should add their names to the AUTHORS file, or THANKS file, and whether they should update the ChangeLog (if that sticks around) and to update the documentation. It also wouldn't hurt to mention in there that all of the submitted code will become/has to be GPL, just in case that's not clear. We're coders after all, not law talkin guys. It's implicitely GPL if you're editing GPL code. That's a) due to copyleft and b) patches generally don't relicense. Yeah, I just meant as a note: in the hacking file that all patches submitted should be GPL'd, just in case newcomers aren't aware and haven't read the COPYING file. Thanks for the answers! Cheers, Matthew Brush ___ Geany-devel mailing list Geany-devel@uvena.de https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany-devel
