Re: [PATCH] serial: sirf: update copyright years to 2014

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 10:25:50AM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
> 2014-02-19 13:16 GMT+08:00 Barry Song <21cnbao@gmail.com>:
> > 2014-02-15 1:14 GMT+08:00 Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>:
> >> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 10:27:17AM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
> >>> 2014-02-13 0:38 GMT+08:00 Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>:
> >>> > On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 12:26:35AM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
> >>> >> > Well, your 2012 change doesn't seem to be "significant" to warrent a
> >>> >> > normal copyright update, but the update is usually "less strict" than an
> >>> >> > original mark, so that might be ok, now that I review these closer.
> >>> >> >
> >>> >> > But I'd still prefer to get the opinion of your lawyer about this.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Greg, thanks. i will ask csr lawyer to give some feedback if i can :-)
> >>> >>
> >>> >> i am not an expert of  copyright and i am really ignorant on it. in my
> >>> >> shallow understand, it seems it is difficult to evaluate what is
> >>> >> "significant" and what is not important as it highly depends on the
> >>> >> personal opinion? is this something like "there are a thousand Hamlets
> >>> >> in a thousand people's eyes"?
> >>> >
> >>> > It does "depend", but the "general" rule that most everyone follows, and
> >>> > what I have been advised to stick to, is "1/3 of the file is
> >>> > modified/added to" by a company/developer.  If that happens, then a
> >>> > copyright mark is allowed.  That has worked well over the many years of
> >>> > me having to deal with this, but the issue of "extending" the mark
> >>> > hasn't really been discussed, so I don't know if that same rule applies
> >>> > here or not.
> >>> >
> >>> > Feedback from your lawyer would be great to have on this, thanks.
> >>> >
> >>>
> >>> Greg, i am inviting our lawyer Cherrie into this, as she is maybe
> >>> busy, so we might wait some time.
> >>
> >> In my research, it's become apparent that the copyright notice should
> >> just be removed entirely from the files, as they don't mean anything
> >> from a legal standpoint, so updating them shouldn't really be done
> >> either, as they don't mean anything.  Although one could argue, if they
> >> don't mean anything, updating it shouldn't matter, but I don't think
> >> that the transitive is true here...
> >>
> >> It will be interesting to find out what your lawyer says about this.
> >
> > Greg, all your comments have been forwarded to our layer and counsel.
> > pls wait for some time :-)
> 
> Greg,
> 
> here i got some comments from the lawyer.
> "
> the reason that people want the copyright notice to include 2014 is to
> ensure that the copyrighted works have the longest possible life
> available under copyright protection.

But just putting a number in a file does not have anything to do with
the copyright of the file itself, right?  It can be a "hint", but a lot
of projects are doing away with these types of file "markings" entirely,
as it has been proven to not mean anything.

> if the changes that have been made to CSR’s source code for the driver
> program (which was originally authored in 2011 - entirely using CSR
> original source code) are insignificant — for example, just adding or
> editing a few lines of code among hundreds or thousands (or more)
> lines of code, those changes are unlikely to be seen as a "derivative
> work" that would be the subject of independent copyright protection
> (for the changed portion) as of the year in which those changes were
> made.  If significant changes were made to the source code, such that
> new functionality were added, or a similar upgrade (for efficiency,
> etc.), or something along those lines — even if the changes only
> amounted to 5 or 10% of the code total — that could be deemed a
> derivative work that would be able to have its own copyright notice in
> the year in which the changes were created/authored.  There is no hard
> and fast rule on the percentage.
> 
> for the general guideline that if one-third or more of the program’s
> source code has been updated/changed/added, then an updated year can
> be set forth in the copyright notice.  That guideline, while useful as
> a minor rule of thumb, is not required by law or anything else to my
> knowledge — the crux of the issue is really whether the changes amount
> to a derivative work."

That's an interesting statement, but not what my lawyer has advised me
to abide by.

> and after talking with the lawyer, if a new year is added in copyright
> notice, it is for protecting the changes in 2013. so "extend the
> copyright year" should be wrong. it is not extending the exiting
> copyright, it is a new year to protect the new codes changed in the
> year.

But nothing was changed in your patch in the "code" section, right?

Anyway, care to resend this patch, based on the above information, and
we can try this again?

thanks,

greg k-h
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