On Wed, 26 Oct 2022 07:36:45 +0000
Johannes Thumshirn [off-list ref] wrote:

[+Cc Steven ]

Steven, you're on the TAB, can you help with this issue?
Or bring it up with other TAB members?

Well, Chris Mason was recently the TAB chair.

Thanks :)

Full quote below for reference:

On 24.10.22 19:11, David Sterba wrote:

quoted

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 11:25:04AM -0400, Chris Mason wrote:  

quoted

On 10/24/22 10:44 AM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:  

quoted

On Mon, Oct 24, 2022 at 08:12:29AM +0000, Johannes Thumshirn wrote:  

quoted

David, what's your plan to progress with this series?  

FYI, I object to merging any of my code into btrfs without a proper
copyright notice, and I also need to find some time to remove my
previous significant changes given that the btrfs maintainer
refuses to take the proper and legally required copyright notice.

So don't waste any of your time on this.  

Christoph's request is well within the norms for the kernel, given that 
he's making substantial changes to these files.  I talked this over with 
GregKH, who pointed me at:

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects

Even if we'd taken up some of the other policies suggested by this doc, 
I'd still defer to preferences of developers who have made significant 
changes.  

I've asked for recommendations or best practice similar to the SPDX
process. Something that TAB can acknowledge and that is perhaps also
consulted with lawyers. And understood within the linux project,
not just that some dudes have an argument because it's all clear as mud
and people are used to do things differently.

The link from linux foundation blog is nice but unless this is codified
into the process it's just somebody's blog post. Also there's a paragraph
about "Why not list every copyright holder?" that covers several points
why I don't want to do that.

But, if TAB says so I will do, perhaps spending hours of unproductive
time looking up the whole history of contributors and adding year, name,
company whatever to files.

There's no requirement to list every copyright holder, as most developers do
not require it for acceptance. The issue I see here is that there's someone
that does require it for you to accept their code.

The policy is simple. If someone requires a copyright notice for their
code, you simply add it, or do not take their code. You can be specific
about what that code is that is copyrighted. Perhaps just around the code in
question or a description at the top.

Looking over the thread, I'm still confused at what the issue is. Is it
that if you add one copyright notice you must do it for everyone else? Is
everyone else asking for it? If not, just add the one and be done with it.

-- Steve