man-pages-6.14 released

man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Gidday!

I'm proud to announce:

	man-pages-6.14 - manual pages for GNU/Linux


Tarball download:
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/>
Git repository:
<https://git.kernel.org/cgit/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/>
Online PDF book:
<https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages/book/>

Thanks to all the contributors to this release (in BCC)!
And thanks to our sponsors!

	-  Adfinis		<https://adfinis.com/>
	-  Google		<https://opensource.google/>
	-  Hudson River Trading	<https://www.hudsonrivertrading.com/>
	-  Meta			<https://www.meta.com/>
	-  Red Hat		<https://www.redhat.com/>


Have a lovely night!
Alex


You are receiving this message either because:

        a)  (BCC) You contributed to this release.

        b)  You are subscribed to <linux-man@vger.kernel.org>,
            <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>, or
            <libc-alpha@sourceware.org>.

        c)  (BCC) I have information (possibly inaccurate) that you are
            the maintainer of a translation of the manual pages, or are
            the maintainer of the manual pages set in a particular
            distribution, or have expressed interest in helping with
            man-pages maintenance, or have otherwise expressed interest
            in being notified about man-pages releases.
            If you don't want to receive such messages from me, or you
            know of some other translator or maintainer who may want to
            receive such notifications, send me a message.

==================== Changes in man-pages-6.14 ====================

Released: 2025-05-09, Aldaya


New and rewritten pages
-----------------------

man2const/
	UFFDIO_MOVE.2const

man7/
	mctp.7


Newly documented interfaces in existing pages
---------------------------------------------

man2/
	fanotify_init.2
		FAN_REPORT_FD_ERROR
		FAN_REPORT_MNT
	fanotify_mark.2
		FAN_PRE_ACCESS
		FAN_MARK_MNTNS
		FAN_MNT_ATTACH, FAN_MNT_DETACH
	open_by_handle_at.2
		AT_HANDLE_CONNECTABLE
		AT_HANDLE_MNT_ID_UNIQUE

man2const/
	TIOCLINUX.2const
		TIOCL_SELCHAR
		TIOCL_SELWORD
		TIOCL_SELLINE
		TIOCL_SELPOINTER
		TIOCL_SELCLEAR
		TIOCL_SELMOUSEREPORT

man3/
	abs.3
		uabs(3)
		ulabs(3)
		ullabs(3)
		uimaxabs(3)

man7/
	fanotify.7
		FAN_DENY_ERRNO()
		FAN_REPORT_FD_ERROR
		FAN_PRE_ACCESS
		FAN_RESPONSE_INFO_AUDIT_RULE
		FAN_REPORT_MNT
		FAN_MNT_ATTACH, FAN_MNT_DETACH
		FAN_EVENT_INFO_TYPE_MNT


New and changed links
---------------------

man3/
	uabs.3					(abs(3))
	ulabs.3					(abs(3))
	ullabs.3				(abs(3))
	uimaxabs.3				(abs(3))


Global changes
--------------

-  CREDITS, *
   -  Move in-source contribution records to a new CREDITS file, and
      update copyright notices to be uniform across the project.

-  man/
   -  Use GNU forward declarations of parameters for sizes of array
      parameters.
   -  \fX => \f[X]
   -  Use 'path' instead of 'pathname' for parameters.

-  Release tarball
   -  The size of the release tarball is around 0.1 MiB smaller, thanks
      to having moved contribution records to the new CREDITS file, and
      having simplified (and unified) copyright notices.


Changes to individual files
---------------------------

The manual pages and other files in the repository have been improved
beyond what this changelog covers.  To learn more about changes applied
to individual pages, or the authors of changes, use git(1).


==================== Linux Software Map ===========================

Begin4
Title:          Linux man-pages
Version:        6.14
Entered-date:   2025-05-09
Description:    Manual pages for GNU/Linux.  This package contains
                manual pages for sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7, and
                subsections of those.  Only a few pages are provided in
                sections 1, 6, and 8, and none in 9.
Keywords:       man pages
Maintained-by:  Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
Primary-site:   http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/man-pages
                2.6M  man-pages-6.14.tar.gz
Copying-policy: several; the pages are all freely distributable as long as
                nroff source is provided
End

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Andries E. Brouwer]

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 01:15:06AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Gidday!
> 
> I'm proud to announce:
> 
> 	man-pages-6.14 - manual pages for GNU/Linux
> 
> 
> Global changes
> --------------
> 
> -  CREDITS, *
>    -  Move in-source contribution records to a new CREDITS file, and
>       update copyright notices to be uniform across the project.

Good morning!

I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
others to do certain things.

If I pick a random page, man2/unlink.2, then it used to start

.\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
.\"             and Copyright (C) 1993 Ian Jackson
.\"             and Copyright (C) 2006, 2014 Michael Kerrisk.
.\"
.\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
.\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
.\" preserved on all copies.
.\"
.\" Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
.\" Modified 1996-09-08 by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no>
.\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
.\" Modified 2001-05-17 by aeb
.\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

Today I read

.\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft

I no longer find the information about who owns this page.
The old permission notice does not seem to allow distribution
without this information.

Andries

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Andries,

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 01:26:27PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 01:15:06AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > Gidday!
> > 
> > I'm proud to announce:
> > 
> > 	man-pages-6.14 - manual pages for GNU/Linux
> > 
> > 
> > Global changes
> > --------------
> > 
> > -  CREDITS, *
> >    -  Move in-source contribution records to a new CREDITS file, and
> >       update copyright notices to be uniform across the project.
> 
> Good morning!
> 
> I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> others to do certain things.

I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
documented links to the discussion in the commit message:

commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200

    *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
    
    Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
    Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
    Cc: "G. Branden Robinson" <branden@debian.org>
    Cc: Carlos O'Donell <carlos@redhat.com>
    Cc: Eugene Syromyatnikov <evgsyr@gmail.com>
    Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>


In the first link, you'll see the discussion.

> If I pick a random page, man2/unlink.2, then it used to start
> 
> .\" This manpage is Copyright (C) 1992 Drew Eckhardt;
> .\"             and Copyright (C) 1993 Ian Jackson
> .\"             and Copyright (C) 2006, 2014 Michael Kerrisk.
> .\"
> .\" Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this
> .\" manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are
> .\" preserved on all copies.
> .\"
> .\" Modified 1993-07-24 by Rik Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>
> .\" Modified 1996-09-08 by Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no>
> .\" Modified 1997-01-31 by Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
> .\" Modified 2001-05-17 by aeb
> .\" Modified 2004-06-23 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
> 
> Today I read
> 
> .\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
> .\"
> .\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
> 
> I no longer find the information about who owns this page.

It is less specific than it was before, but it still includes the
authors, as part of the group "The contributors ot the ...", which are
then listed in CREDITS.

	$ grep -e Faith -e Gulbrandsen -e Raymond -e Andries -e Kerrisk CREDITS
	Andries E. Brouwer <aeb@cwi.nl>
	Arnt Gulbrandsen <agulbra@troll.no>
	Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
	Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
	Rickard E. Faith <faith@cs.unc.edu>

The current wording is IMO more appropriate, as we also credit
contributors that don't take the time to update the copyright (I haven't
updated copyright notices for myself in many pages).  On the other hand,
it literally removes copyright notices that were there before (by
transforming them into the unified one), so I would understand if
someone would consider this not valid legally.

I am not a lawyer.

> The old permission notice does not seem to allow distribution
> without this information.
> 
> Andries

I was wondering if I should CC the ~600 people listed in CREDITS, and
wait for a month or so until we can assume all agree to it (by their
silence).

Any opinions?  FWIW, are you okay with your own notices being
transformed?


Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Andries E. Brouwer]

Hi Alejandro,

> > I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> > There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> > others to do certain things.
> 
> I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
> documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
> 
> commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
> Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
> Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
> 
>     *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
>     
>     Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
>     Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>

So I read this last link, and see

"Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."

The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
of course provided the new contributor agrees.
In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.

Andries

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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[CC += Branden, Carlos, Eugene]

Hi Andries,

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:14:54PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> Hi Alejandro,
> 
> > > I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> > > There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> > > others to do certain things.
> > 
> > I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
> > documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
> > 
> > commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
> > Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
> > Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
> > 
> >     *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
> >     
> >     Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
> >     Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
> 
> So I read this last link, and see
> 
> "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
> You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
> they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
> third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."

I understood that paragraph as not changing copyright notices from
people unrelated to the project.  For example, pages copied (or based
on) other pages from UCB should retain their copyright (and I kept it):

	$ grep -rn Copyright.*University -C1 man | head
	man/man3/fopen.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/fopen.3:2:.\" Copyright 1990-1991, The Regents of the University of California.
	man/man3/fopen.3-3-.\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
	--
	man/man3/fts.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/fts.3:2:.\" Copyright 1989-1994, The Regents of the University of California.
	man/man3/fts.3-3-.\" Copyright, The contributors to the Linux man-pages project
	--
	man/man3/alloca.3-1-'\" t
	man/man3/alloca.3:2:.\" Copyright 1980-1991, Regents of the University of California.

> 
> The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
> and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
> of course provided the new contributor agrees.
> In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
> unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.

Hmmmm, I'll ask the full list of everyone who's copyright notice was
changed.  Let's see how that goes.

BTW, while we're here, do you give explicit permission to change _your_
copyright notices in this sense?


Cheers,
Alex

> Andries

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Vincent Lefevre]

Hi,

On 2025-05-09 14:28:23 +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:14:54PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> > Hi Alejandro,
> > 
> > > > I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> > > > There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> > > > others to do certain things.
> > > 
> > > I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
> > > documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
> > > 
> > > commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
> > > Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
> > > Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
> > > 
> > >     *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
> > >     
> > >     Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
> > >     Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
> > 
> > So I read this last link, and see
> > 
> > "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
> > You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
> > they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
> > third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."
> 
> I understood that paragraph as not changing copyright notices from
> people unrelated to the project.

I don't think so. But IMHO, it would be OK to provide the old copyright
notices in an indirect way: put them in a different file and just give
a reference to this file, as long as this file is distributed together
with the man pages and can be found easily.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Vincent,

On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:48:29PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 2025-05-09 14:28:23 +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:14:54PM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> > > Hi Alejandro,
> > > 
> > > > > I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> > > > > There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> > > > > others to do certain things.
> > > > 
> > > > I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
> > > > documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
> > > > 
> > > > commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
> > > > Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
> > > > Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
> > > > 
> > > >     *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
> > > >     
> > > >     Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
> > > >     Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
> > > 
> > > So I read this last link, and see
> > > 
> > > "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
> > > You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
> > > they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
> > > third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."
> > 
> > I understood that paragraph as not changing copyright notices from
> > people unrelated to the project.
> 
> I don't think so. But IMHO, it would be OK to provide the old copyright
> notices in an indirect way: put them in a different file and just give
> a reference to this file, as long as this file is distributed together
> with the man pages and can be found easily.

Hmmm, I considered that the copyright attributed to the contributors
and then a CREDITS file that lists the contributors is an indirect way
of keeping the notices.  The CREDITS file is distributed together with
the manual pages, and can be found easily (root of the repo).  It
doesn't keep the original notice text verbatim, though.


Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-05-09 14:57:56 +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Vincent,
> 
> On Fri, May 09, 2025 at 02:48:29PM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > I don't think so. But IMHO, it would be OK to provide the old copyright
> > notices in an indirect way: put them in a different file and just give
> > a reference to this file, as long as this file is distributed together
> > with the man pages and can be found easily.
> 
> Hmmm, I considered that the copyright attributed to the contributors
> and then a CREDITS file that lists the contributors is an indirect way
> of keeping the notices.  The CREDITS file is distributed together with
> the manual pages, and can be found easily (root of the repo).  It
> doesn't keep the original notice text verbatim, though.

This is my thought, and the fact that the CREDITS file gives fewer
details might by an issue w.r.t. *old* copyright notices. That said,
the CREDITS file would be more correct because incorrect things had
been done on the copyright notices in the past.

Let's give an example: commit 7d6b0208863d41c78785c47d564cf4b55906f0d1

In this commit, text was moved from regex_t.3type to regex.3 (and
the regex_t.3type contents got entirely removed, including its
copyright notice), but the copyright notice of regex.3 was not
updated to include the one from regex_t.3type:

regex_t.3type had

  Copyright (c) 2020-2022 by Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
  and Copyright (c) 2020 by Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>

but in this commit, regex.3 still had only

  Copyright (C), 1995, Graeme W. Wilford. (Wilf.)

  Modified 8 May 1998 by Joseph S. Myers (jsm28@cam.ac.uk)

IMHO, due to potentially intractable issues with text moves between
man pages, copyright notices should apply to the whole project, not
to individual files. This is what CREDITS does.

But also preserving old copyright information somewhere might be
needed, even though it is incomplete (and perhaps give some warning
about that).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 5/9/25 8:14 AM, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> Hi Alejandro,
> 
>>> I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
>>> There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
>>> others to do certain things.
>>
>> I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
>> documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
>>
>> commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
>> Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
>> Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
>>
>>      *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
>>      
>>      Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
>>      Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
> 
> So I read this last link, and see
> 
> "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
> You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
> they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
> third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."
> 
> The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
> and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
> of course provided the new contributor agrees.
> In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
> unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.

I agree with Andries.

This is also my interpretation, you cannot remove these entries without
express permission from the copyright holder.

In glibc we did not remove any copyright notices, but *added* under DCO
"Copyright, The GNU Toolchain authors."

Example:
    1 /* Map in a shared object's segments from the file.
    2    Copyright (C) 1995-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    3    Copyright The GNU Toolchain Authors.
    4    This file is part of the GNU C Library.
    ...

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Carlos,

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 04:41:16PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 5/9/25 8:14 AM, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> > Hi Alejandro,
> > 
> > > > I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
> > > > There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
> > > > others to do certain things.
> > > 
> > > I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
> > > documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
> > > 
> > > commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
> > > Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
> > > Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
> > > 
> > >      *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
> > >      Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
> > >      Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
> > 
> > So I read this last link, and see
> > 
> > "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
> > You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
> > they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
> > third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."
> > 
> > The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
> > and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
> > of course provided the new contributor agrees.
> > In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
> > unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.
> 
> I agree with Andries.
> 
> This is also my interpretation, you cannot remove these entries without
> express permission from the copyright holder.

Well, we got express permission for a third of the copyright holders in
the last few months.  Also, we got no express notices in the contrary,
so around two thirds have remained silent.

We could restore those that haven't expressely granted permission...

The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly
by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
copyright, so these are the problematic ones).

By rewriting the copyright notices, we'd actually be honoring the
copyright, even when text is moved from page to page.  I think that is
more important.  And since all explicit notices have granted us
permission, even if some have remained silent (in some cases, their
email probably isn't monitored anymore), I think we should go forward.


Have a lovely day!
Alex

> In glibc we did not remove any copyright notices, but *added* under DCO
> "Copyright, The GNU Toolchain authors."
> 
> Example:
>    1 /* Map in a shared object's segments from the file.
>    2    Copyright (C) 1995-2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
>    3    Copyright The GNU Toolchain Authors.
>    4    This file is part of the GNU C Library.
>    ...
> 
> -- 
> Cheers,
> Carlos.
> 
> 

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Carlos O'Donell]

On 6/26/25 5:04 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Carlos,
> 
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 04:41:16PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
>> On 5/9/25 8:14 AM, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
>>> Hi Alejandro,
>>>
>>>>> I wonder about the legal status of such a change.
>>>>> There is ownership of the pages, and a license that allows
>>>>> others to do certain things.
>>>>
>>>> I also wonder about it.  We discussed it for several (~3) months, and I
>>>> documented links to the discussion in the commit message:
>>>>
>>>> commit 9f2986c34166085225bb5606ebfd4952054e1657
>>>> Author: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
>>>> Date:   Fri Apr 11 02:19:48 2025 +0200
>>>>
>>>>       *, CREDITS: Unify copyright notices
>>>>       Link: <https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/jpin2dbnp5vpitnh7l4qmvkamzq3h3xljzsznrudgioox3nn72@57uybxbe3h4p/T/#u>
>>>>       Link: <https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-source-software-projects>
>>>
>>> So I read this last link, and see
>>>
>>> "Don’t change someone else’s copyright notice without their permission
>>> You should not change or remove someone else’s copyright notice unless
>>> they have expressly (in writing) permitted you to do so. This includes
>>> third parties’ notices in pre-existing code."
>>>
>>> The main topic of that link is how one should document new contributions,
>>> and writing "by the contributors of the foo project" is OK for new stuff,
>>> of course provided the new contributor agrees.
>>> In my opinion it is illegal to change existing copyright notices,
>>> unless you get permission from all people involved, which seems unlikely.
>>
>> I agree with Andries.
>>
>> This is also my interpretation, you cannot remove these entries without
>> express permission from the copyright holder.
> 
> Well, we got express permission for a third of the copyright holders in
> the last few months.  Also, we got no express notices in the contrary,
> so around two thirds have remained silent.

You should track down the copyright holders and get written approval,
or restore the copyright notices.

This is exactly the difficulty in maintaining such written notices.

And why they are no longer recommended.

> We could restore those that haven't expressely granted permission...

Yes please.

May I suggest doing a new release with the copyrights restored?

> The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly
> by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
> notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
> copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
> copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
> removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
> copyright, so these are the problematic ones).

Both are legally mistakes.

The common utterance is "As compliance approaches 100% cost approaches
infinity" :-)

However, you should not deny anyone the right to have their copyright
directly noted in the file, but you can encourage the generic use of
"Copyright the Foo Authors." You can deny the contribution entirely if
you wish on grounds that maintaining copyright statements is too much
work.

> By rewriting the copyright notices, we'd actually be honoring the
> copyright, even when text is moved from page to page.  I think that is
> more important.  And since all explicit notices have granted us
> permission, even if some have remained silent (in some cases, their
> email probably isn't monitored anymore), I think we should go forward.

I agree, but you need permission from the authors.

I disagree that man-pages should go forward with the current changes.

May you please restore the copyright notices and cut a new release?

-- 
Cheers,
Carlos.

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Carlos,

On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 07:01:24PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> > Well, we got express permission for a third of the copyright holders in
> > the last few months.  Also, we got no express notices in the contrary,
> > so around two thirds have remained silent.
> 
> You should track down the copyright holders and get written approval,
> or restore the copyright notices.
> 
> This is exactly the difficulty in maintaining such written notices.
> 
> And why they are no longer recommended.
> 
> > We could restore those that haven't expressely granted permission...
> 
> Yes please.
> 
> May I suggest doing a new release with the copyrights restored?
> 
> > The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly
> > by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
> > notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
> > copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
> > copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
> > removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
> > copyright, so these are the problematic ones).
> 
> Both are legally mistakes.
> 
> The common utterance is "As compliance approaches 100% cost approaches
> infinity" :-)
> 
> However, you should not deny anyone the right to have their copyright
> directly noted in the file, but you can encourage the generic use of
> "Copyright the Foo Authors." You can deny the contribution entirely if
> you wish on grounds that maintaining copyright statements is too much
> work.

Sure, if anyone explicitly wants to retain a copyright notice, I'll do
so (if it was old), or refuse to accept the patch (if it is new).

> > By rewriting the copyright notices, we'd actually be honoring the
> > copyright, even when text is moved from page to page.  I think that is
> > more important.  And since all explicit notices have granted us
> > permission, even if some have remained silent (in some cases, their
> > email probably isn't monitored anymore), I think we should go forward.
> 
> I agree, but you need permission from the authors.
> 
> I disagree that man-pages should go forward with the current changes.
> 
> May you please restore the copyright notices and cut a new release?

Hmmm, it'll take some time.  I need to stop and compare the both lists,
which are rather long.  I don't promise it will happen soon, but I'll
keep it in a TODO list.  I'll also try to do it at least after
September, when I'll be meeting Michael in person, where I'll ask him
about his copyright notices (which represent a huge percentage of the
copyright notice lines).  That will reduce the work significantly.
So, it might happen around the end of this year.

Once I start doing that, I'll do another round of asking the remaining
people about their copyright notices.  Hopefully, there'l l be few of
them.


Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Andries E. Brouwer]

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 01:14:46AM +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 07:01:24PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:

> > you need permission from the authors.
> > 
> > I disagree that man-pages should go forward with the current changes.
> > 
> > May you please restore the copyright notices and cut a new release?
> 
> Hmmm, it'll take some time.  I need to stop and compare the both lists,
> which are rather long.  I don't promise it will happen soon, but I'll
> keep it in a TODO list.  I'll also try to do it at least after
> September, when I'll be meeting Michael in person, where I'll ask him
> about his copyright notices (which represent a huge percentage of the
> copyright notice lines).  That will reduce the work significantly.
> So, it might happen around the end of this year.
> 
> Once I start doing that, I'll do another round of asking the remaining
> people about their copyright notices.  Hopefully, there'l l be few of
> them.


I think you are too sloppy.

Do you not recall the SCO saga?
There a big legal conflict arose over copyright ownership.
Something is still visible on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_disputes
Maybe this ancient matter has still not been completely settled.

Copyright is a legal matter, not something where convenience plays a role.
In principle you need permission of everyone involved, and not only that,
but you must be able to prove in court that everyone did give this permission.
So one needs written permission.
(And in what jurisdiction? Copyright details differ between countries.)
Some original copyright holders are no longer alive, and the rights
have been inherited.
Life is much easier if you regard those copyright sentences as fossils
carried over from earlier to later versions. And leave them verbatim.

Andries

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-06-26 19:01:24 -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> On 6/26/25 5:04 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly

This was me, there:

https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/u2ogua4573d2xm2p2oiuna67kydkr3e26pt6lixeidezdw34dg@nvn64na3cptt/T/#me71349fc15520d5c183311dfaf85667903c07d9d

> > by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
> > notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
> > copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
> > copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
> > removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
> > copyright, so these are the problematic ones).
> 
> Both are legally mistakes.

Mistakes, yes (as long as copyright notices are per-file).
But legally? Why?

I've always heard that a copyright notice was optional and only
informative (so, in particular, there are no requirements to have
per-file copyright notices instead of a single one for the work).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Andries,

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 02:08:11AM +0200, Andries E. Brouwer wrote:
> I think you are too sloppy.

Anyone's welcome to send a patch if they have more time for that.  I'm
rather busy, and don't think this is priority #1.  It is important, I
don't say it's not; I've taken a long time to make the change, indeed;
I need a long time to partially revert it too.

> Do you not recall the SCO saga?
> There a big legal conflict arose over copyright ownership.
> Something is still visible on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO–Linux_disputes
> Maybe this ancient matter has still not been completely settled.
> 
> Copyright is a legal matter, not something where convenience plays a role.
> In principle you need permission of everyone involved, and not only that,
> but you must be able to prove in court that everyone did give this permission.
> So one needs written permission.

I do have written permission from around a third of the contributors.
Of course, I'll ask Michael to reply in written too.

> (And in what jurisdiction? Copyright details differ between countries.)
> Some original copyright holders are no longer alive, and the rights
> have been inherited.
> Life is much easier if you regard those copyright sentences as fossils
> carried over from earlier to later versions. And leave them verbatim.

Well, hopefully we can minimize the amount of fossils.  Which I've
achieved, as I managed to get written permission from about a third of
the contributors.  So, I'm happy about the results.  Even if some of
those fossil lines will be put back, I've removed a large part of them
forever.

> 
> Andries

Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi,

TO += Jilayne, Sebastian

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 02:20:11AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2025-06-26 19:01:24 -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> > On 6/26/25 5:04 PM, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > > The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly
> 
> This was me, there:
> 
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-man/u2ogua4573d2xm2p2oiuna67kydkr3e26pt6lixeidezdw34dg@nvn64na3cptt/T/#me71349fc15520d5c183311dfaf85667903c07d9d

Thanks!

> > > by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
> > > notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
> > > copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
> > > copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
> > > removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
> > > copyright, so these are the problematic ones).
> > 
> > Both are legally mistakes.
> 
> Mistakes, yes (as long as copyright notices are per-file).
> But legally? Why?
> 
> I've always heard that a copyright notice was optional and only
> informative (so, in particular, there are no requirements to have
> per-file copyright notices instead of a single one for the work).

I tend to agree with you.  I'll invoke some SPDX people, which might
clarify our legal doubts.  I suspect they're lawyers or have contact
with lawyers.

For context to the SPDX people, we're discussing if the following is
valid or not:

There were a lot of old copyright notices, each with its own format,
some more formal, some less...

That was a huge mess, and the copyright notices were not always
respected: for example, in cases code has been moved from one file to
another, and the copyright notices weren't carried over.  In other
cases, some people (including myself) significantly modified some files,
but forgot to add a copyright notice for themselves.

So, I eventually decided to unify the copyright notices for the entire
project, so that the copyright notices would look like

	Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project

And then a top-level AUTHORS file would list every author.  This is
quite more accurate than the previous copyright notices.  However, some
contributors are concerned that it might be illegal to modify those
copyright notices without express written permission.

I've sent email to everyone whose copyright notice has been modified,
and I got around a third of explicit approvals, but the other two thirds
remained silent (in some cases, the emails probably don't exist, the
people are dead, or they don't read the email anymore).  Notably, nobody
has explicitly said no.

What do you think?


Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-06-27 06:23:26 +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > I've always heard that a copyright notice was optional and only
> > informative (so, in particular, there are no requirements to have
> > per-file copyright notices instead of a single one for the work).
> 
> I tend to agree with you.  I'll invoke some SPDX people, which might
> clarify our legal doubts.  I suspect they're lawyers or have contact
> with lawyers.
> 
> For context to the SPDX people, we're discussing if the following is
> valid or not:
> 
> There were a lot of old copyright notices, each with its own format,
> some more formal, some less...
> 
> That was a huge mess, and the copyright notices were not always
> respected: for example, in cases code has been moved from one file to
> another, and the copyright notices weren't carried over.  In other
> cases, some people (including myself) significantly modified some files,
> but forgot to add a copyright notice for themselves.
> 
> So, I eventually decided to unify the copyright notices for the entire
> project, so that the copyright notices would look like
> 
> 	Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
> 
> And then a top-level AUTHORS file would list every author.  This is
> quite more accurate than the previous copyright notices.  However, some
> contributors are concerned that it might be illegal to modify those
> copyright notices without express written permission.
> 
> I've sent email to everyone whose copyright notice has been modified,
> and I got around a third of explicit approvals, but the other two thirds
> remained silent (in some cases, the emails probably don't exist, the
> people are dead, or they don't read the email anymore).  Notably, nobody
> has explicitly said no.
> 
> What do you think?

There is actually a more important issue: it appears that the man
pages are not all distributed under the same license (according to
"SPDX-License-Identifier:"), so that some care would have had do be
done when copying text from one man page to another one. That said,
I would tend to think that when such text has been copied, this was
for related man pages, and there is a chance that such man pages are
distributed under the same license. Unifying the licenses by asking
the authors / copyright holders would be a great thing to do.

Now, about the copyright notices, you also need to give the full
list of the licenses that can apply, as some license may require
the copyright notice to have some restricted form (such as being
included in the file itself).

For instance, the GPL licenses have

  To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
  to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
  convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
  the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is
  found.

(or "state" instead of "convey"), for which this seems clear that
the current decision is OK.

I think that among the licences listes under LICENSES, only
Linux-man-pages-1-para could be problematic, but only 18 files
are concerned.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Vincent,

On Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 09:49:25AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2025-06-27 06:23:26 +0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> > > I've always heard that a copyright notice was optional and only
> > > informative (so, in particular, there are no requirements to have
> > > per-file copyright notices instead of a single one for the work).
> > 
> > I tend to agree with you.  I'll invoke some SPDX people, which might
> > clarify our legal doubts.  I suspect they're lawyers or have contact
> > with lawyers.
> > 
> > For context to the SPDX people, we're discussing if the following is
> > valid or not:
> > 
> > There were a lot of old copyright notices, each with its own format,
> > some more formal, some less...
> > 
> > That was a huge mess, and the copyright notices were not always
> > respected: for example, in cases code has been moved from one file to
> > another, and the copyright notices weren't carried over.  In other
> > cases, some people (including myself) significantly modified some files,
> > but forgot to add a copyright notice for themselves.
> > 
> > So, I eventually decided to unify the copyright notices for the entire
> > project, so that the copyright notices would look like
> > 
> > 	Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
> > 
> > And then a top-level AUTHORS file would list every author.  This is
> > quite more accurate than the previous copyright notices.  However, some
> > contributors are concerned that it might be illegal to modify those
> > copyright notices without express written permission.
> > 
> > I've sent email to everyone whose copyright notice has been modified,
> > and I got around a third of explicit approvals, but the other two thirds
> > remained silent (in some cases, the emails probably don't exist, the
> > people are dead, or they don't read the email anymore).  Notably, nobody
> > has explicitly said no.
> > 
> > What do you think?
> 
> There is actually a more important issue: it appears that the man
> pages are not all distributed under the same license (according to
> "SPDX-License-Identifier:"), so that some care would have had do be
> done when copying text from one man page to another one. That said,
> I would tend to think that when such text has been copied, this was
> for related man pages, and there is a chance that such man pages are
> distributed under the same license.

Yeah, most likely it happened like that.  I recall having been a bit
careful about that, and don't remember moving text from significantly
differently licensed files.

> Unifying the licenses by asking
> the authors / copyright holders would be a great thing to do.

I did actually ask a few contributors, for cases where a license was
used only in a few pages, to change their license.  I got rid that way
of a couple of unique licenses.  That was some years ago, when I worked
in having SPDX license identifiers for the man-pages licenses.

In fact, some distros had complained that some of the existing licenses
were considered non-free, and we got explicit approval from all
copyright holders to change the license.

> Now, about the copyright notices, you also need to give the full
> list of the licenses that can apply, as some license may require
> the copyright notice to have some restricted form (such as being
> included in the file itself).
> 
> For instance, the GPL licenses have
> 
>   To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
>   to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
>   convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
>   the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is
>   found.
> 
> (or "state" instead of "convey"), for which this seems clear that
> the current decision is OK.
> 
> I think that among the licences listes under LICENSES, only
> Linux-man-pages-1-para could be problematic, but only 18 files
> are concerned.

Have a lovely day!
Alex

-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>

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Re: man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Hi Carlos,

On 2025-06-27T01:14:47+0200, Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> Hi Carlos,
> 
> On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 07:01:24PM -0400, Carlos O'Donell wrote:
> > > Well, we got express permission for a third of the copyright holders in
> > > the last few months.  Also, we got no express notices in the contrary,
> > > so around two thirds have remained silent.
> > 
> > You should track down the copyright holders and get written approval,
> > or restore the copyright notices.
> > 
> > This is exactly the difficulty in maintaining such written notices.
> > 
> > And why they are no longer recommended.
> > 
> > > We could restore those that haven't expressely granted permission...
> > 
> > Yes please.
> > 
> > May I suggest doing a new release with the copyrights restored?
> > 
> > > The thing is, as someone else mentioned, removals happen also implicitly
> > > by moving text from one page to another and not copying copyright
> > > notices, so how much does it matter an intentional rewrite of the
> > > copyright notices into a different form (but which keeps their
> > > copyright, as part of the AUTHORS file), compared to an unintentional
> > > removal of copyright by moving the text (these do actually remove
> > > copyright, so these are the problematic ones).
> > 
> > Both are legally mistakes.
> > 
> > The common utterance is "As compliance approaches 100% cost approaches
> > infinity" :-)
> > 
> > However, you should not deny anyone the right to have their copyright
> > directly noted in the file, but you can encourage the generic use of
> > "Copyright the Foo Authors." You can deny the contribution entirely if
> > you wish on grounds that maintaining copyright statements is too much
> > work.
> 
> Sure, if anyone explicitly wants to retain a copyright notice, I'll do
> so (if it was old), or refuse to accept the patch (if it is new).
> 
> > > By rewriting the copyright notices, we'd actually be honoring the
> > > copyright, even when text is moved from page to page.  I think that is
> > > more important.  And since all explicit notices have granted us
> > > permission, even if some have remained silent (in some cases, their
> > > email probably isn't monitored anymore), I think we should go forward.
> > 
> > I agree, but you need permission from the authors.
> > 
> > I disagree that man-pages should go forward with the current changes.
> > 
> > May you please restore the copyright notices and cut a new release?
> 
> Hmmm, it'll take some time.  I need to stop and compare the both lists,
> which are rather long.  I don't promise it will happen soon, but I'll
> keep it in a TODO list.  I'll also try to do it at least after
> September, when I'll be meeting Michael in person, where I'll ask him
> about his copyright notices (which represent a huge percentage of the
> copyright notice lines).  That will reduce the work significantly.
> So, it might happen around the end of this year.

I have finished working on this.  I've restored old copyright notices
from contributors (individuals and otherwise) who have not expressed
content with the unified notices.

I've pushed to a branch for now:
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/log/?h=license>

I'll work on the new release for the next few days, and will include
that commit in the release.


Have a lovely night!
Alex

> 
> Once I start doing that, I'll do another round of asking the remaining
> people about their copyright notices.  Hopefully, there'l l be few of
> them.
> 
> 
> Have a lovely day!
> Alex
> 
> -- 
> <https://www.alejandro-colomar.es/>



-- 
<https://www.alejandro-colomar.es>

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