gpl header copyright bugfix for my old contributions ready to be?merged

[Henning Sprang]

Michael Tautschnig wrote:
>[...]
> Indeed, these do exist, even though probably few of us will really have a
> profound understanding of them.

I think, they are just not complete and so do not explicitly explain
evcery possible case - which is not a "bug", but in the nature of things
- nothing can completely cover a very complex topic.

If we talk only german laws, and software, it is unclear from which
point exactly one can be said to be a contributor - from when
"Schöpfungshöhe" is achieved.

Is it somebody who sends a patch fixing a minor typo, or is it about
contributions of more than 10, or 20 lines?
What if a 10 line patch has to be changed so much to fit in nicely, by
the main author, that it's only 10 half lines in the end, and the main
author can be said to have equal as much or more work integrating the
patch, as the original author when initially writing it?

> [...]
> 
> IMHO, the completely correct approach would surely be to add copyright
> statements for all other contributions as well,

And that's the point Thomas said will be a lot work, and what he doesn't 
                                                     like to do before 
Lenny. A point that should be easy to understand.

> [...]
> What I'd suggest is the following: Incorporate Henning's readymade
> copyright-patches _now_. For one thing, because Henning has done and is still
> doing a great job, and second because this seems to be the only proper way to
> proceed.

If Henning insists (which, after not showing interest in such things for
5 years, the age of most of the contrbutions we talk about, would be
hard to understand, I must say) that it must be made _now_, instead of 
after Lenny, it is the only possible way, right.

> In the future, we might come to some agreement like "patches changing less than
> 10 lines are considered minor." 

If we find that such a rule/agreement is valid according international
copyright laws, yes.


> [...]
> In fact, anybody sending a patch which Thomas intends to accept should have
> - clearly stated the license, or rather that they agreed with GPL

I'm not sure if that needs to be explicit, because defintely, if you
send a patch to be incorporated in a GPL software without stating
another license, it's obvious which license you accept.
But yes, better have one sentence too much in such an agreement than one 
too less.

> - claim or give away copyright
> 
> Regular contributors might also want to sign some some piece of paper giving
> away the copyright for any future contributions (no idea, whether this is legal
> at all...), so simplify this kind of paperwork.

I'd say that any contribution has the potential to lead to such unclear
situations as now, so _every_ contributor must sign such an agreement.

It's sad, and it leads to a lot overhead when handling minor
contributions and bugfixes, but it seems to be the only way to make sure
such situations, as we have now do not occur again.

Henning