Re: consolidate btrfs checksumming, repair and bio splitting

Theodore Ts'o
2022-11-03T02:55:54Z

On Mon, Oct 31, 2022 at 01:19:12PM +0100, David Sterba wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Let's say it's OK for substantial amount of code. What if somebody
> moves existing code that he did not write to a new file and adds a
> copyright notice? We got stuck there, both sides have different answer.
> I see it at minimum as unfair to the original code authors if not
> completely wrong because it could appear as "stealing" ownership.

So for whatever it's worth, my personal opinion is that it should be
the Maintainer's call, subject to override by Linus. I don't think
it's really worthwhile to try to come up to a formal policy which
would need to define "substantial amount of code". This is an area
where I think it makes sense to assume that Maintainers will be
reasonable and make decisions that makes sense. Ultimately, I think
Chris's phrasing is the one that makes sense. How much do you want
the contribution? If you want the contribution, and the contributor
requests that they want an explicit copyright notification --- make a
choice. You can either tell Christoph no, and revert the changes, or
accept his request to include a copyright statement.

I understand your concern about "fairness" to other contributors ---
is this a hypothetical, or actual concern? Are there other
significant contributors who have explicitly told you that they will
be mortally offended if Cristoph's request is honored, and their code
contribution was not so recognized? It's unclear to whether this is a
theoretical or practical concern?

If it is a practical concern, how many contributors have contributed
more than Cristoph that have asked, and how many extra lines of
copyright statements are we're talking about? 2? 3? 10? 100?

Remember, if someone sends you whitespace fixups or doubled word fixes
found using checkpatch, and demeands a copyright acknowledgement,
you're free to reject the patch. (Heck, some maintainers reject
checkpatch --file fixups on general principles. :-) So this is why I
think the overall "Linux project standard" should be: "maintainer
discretion".

Cheers,

- Ted