Re: [RFC/PATCH] Git doc: GPL2 does not apply to repo data

["Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org>]

From: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>
> Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:
>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
>> index bff6302..137c89c 100644
>> --- a/Documentation/git.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/git.txt
>> @@ -1132,6 +1132,17 @@ of clones and fetches.
>>    - any external helpers are named by their protocol (e.g., use
>>      `hg` to allow the `git-remote-hg` helper)
>>
>> +Licencing: Your data, and the Git tool[[Licencing]]
>> +---------------------------------------------------
>> +
>> +Git is an open source tool provided under GPL2.
>> +Git was designed to be, and is, the version control system
>> +for the Linux codebase.
>> +Your respository data created by Git is not subject to Git's GNU2
>> +licence, see GPL FAQs
>> +http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0-faq.en.html#TOCGPLOutput).
>> +
>> +User should apply a licence of their own choice to their repository 
>> data.
>>
>>  Discussion[[Discussion]]
>>  ------------------------
>
> While I know you mean well, and I do understand the sentiment behind
> this addition,
It was an RFC for that very sentiment.

>             there are at least two reasons why I do not want to
> (and why we should not) add any "clarification" or "interpretation"
> like this.
>
> One is because such a statement is pointless.  Because we do not do
> copyright assignment to the project, you are not the sole copyright
> owner of Git.  Individual contributors hold copyright to the part
> they wrote.  The above statement you made, even with an endorsement
> by me as the project lead, does not have any power to assure that
> the users will not get sued by one copyright holder, who is not you
> or me, and at that point it is up to the court to interpret GPLv2.
> We can call such a copyright holder crazy or call such a suit
> frivolous, but that does not change the fact that the court is what
> decides the matter, so having that statement does not help the user.
>
> Another is because we are amateurs.  Philip, you may or may not be a
> lawyer yourself,

Correct, but as an Engineer I do get to review terms & conditions and 
specifications quite often..

>    but I know you are not _our_ lawyer.  An amateurish
> "interpretation" or "clarification" does not necessarily clarify the
> text but it muddies it, especially when done carelessly.  Imagine a
> case where a user creates a derived work of Git itself and stored it
> in a Git repository.

>      "Your respository data created by Git is not
> subject to Git's GNU2"--really?  At least the phrasing must say that
> the act of storing something in Git alone would not *MAKE* that
> something governed under GPLv2.

I can see the potential double meaning now you highlight it - I was thinking 
of the 'if it's _your_ data, you can choose'; however if it's not your data, 
the originator's restrictions would apply - that wasn't said.

>     What the user puts in Git may
> already be covered under GPLv2 for other reasons, and a statement
> carelessly written like the above can be twisted to read as if we
> are endorsing use of our code outside GPLv2 as long as they store it
> in Git repository, which is not what you meant to say, but "that is
> not what the copyright holder meant" is another thing the lawyer
> need to argue in court to convince the judge, when we need to go
> after a real copyright violator.
>
> We should leave the lawyering to real lawyers and we should not add
> unnecessary work of interpreting our amateurish loose statement to
> our laywers.

Given Jonathan's question, and your earlier feedback, it did feel that a bit 
of clear blue water would be useful between Git (the DVCS), and /.git/ (the 
repo contents), even if it were only to clarify the issues...

>
> Thanks.
>
--
Philip