[U-Boot] [PATCH 02/60] mmc: tegra: move pad init into MMC driver

Wolfgang Denk
2016-04-25T21:52:53Z

Dear Stephen Warren,

In message <571E733A.1060208@wwwdotorg.org> you wrote:
> On 04/24/2016 04:20 AM, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> > Dear Stephen,
> >
> > In message <1461099580-3866-3-git-send-email-swarren@wwwdotorg.org> you wrote:
> >>
> >> /*
> >> + * Copyright 2011-2016 NVIDIA Corporation
> >> * (C) Copyright 2009 SAMSUNG Electronics
> >> * Minkyu Kang <mk7.kang@samsung.com>
> >> * Jaehoon Chung <jh80.chung@samsung.com>
> >> - * Portions Copyright 2011-2015 NVIDIA Corporation
> >> *
> >> * SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
> >> */
> >
> > Both the change of the position of the copyright note and the
> > rewording contain a subtle but still significant change of meaning.
> >
> > Now it seems as if Nvidia was the major copyright holder. Is this
> > intentional?
>
> I was not aware that the order actually implied anything. I would
> imagine the copyright dates and "git blame" output were more relevant
> since they pin-point specific changes, whereas copyright headers don't
> have the detail to convey the whole picture.

Well, just read the text before and after the patch, and let the
meaning sink in...

> In this case, both "git log" and "git blame" certainly show that NVIDIA
> is the primary author of this code. I deliberately removed "Portions"
> because it was something uncommon and seems inaccurate. I don't recall
> why I changed the order; probably because I was editing a lot of files
> and just happened to paste the message there. I imagine the Samsung
> copyright notice is only there because the general structure of the file
> (set of functions implemented) was based on an existing driver, rather
> than because any of the non-boilerplate code was written by them.

I did not check this, and I don't intend to do so. you may actually
be right, and your modification may be perfectly OK.

But from just reading the patch, it leaves a stale aftertaste.

> Unfortunately we've (NVIDIA at least) been a little lax making sure the
> NVIDIA copyright messages are kept up-to-date when editing files, hence
> why this series had to change a lot of them for the first time recently.
> If we went back and re-wrote all of git history paying strict attention
> to the copyright notice dates and formatting, I imagine the set of
> copyright-related changes in this series would be much smaller.

It is difficult for any outside party to verify this. I feel such
changes require a lot of tact, and global edits are probably not a
good idea. You know that I don't post very often lately, so you can
imagine that this must have stirred me a bit.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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