[Savannah-register-public] [task #14621] Submission of Graph Model Library

[Ineiev]

Follow-up Comment #3, task #14621 (project administration):

> The first two are LaTeX-generated files included for convenience and
clarity. 
> I do not believe they can have copyrights injected.

Why not? If any files have no license, they are unredistributable and
make the whole tarball unredistributable.

> The third is a one-liner that simply states the version number.  Does this
> really need a copyright notice?

No, it isn't copyrightable.

> The two *.md files can have copyright notices, but that injects the notices
> into the Doxygen output in totally inappropriate places.  I feel it is
better
> to leave the notices out of these two files and preserve the clarity of the
> generated documentation, rather than slavishly follow a policy that all
files
> should have copyright notices.

Then you could consider rearranging the documentation in a way that
allows including such notices in every file.

> The remainder are binary files that cannot be modified to include other
> elements without breaking the file formats.

When file format doesn't permit notices, they should be written in a README
file in the same directory.

> Overall, given the prominence of COPYING (following GNU guidelines) and the
> presence of notices in the remaining files (over 700), I feel that the
copying
> terms are clearly spelled out.

GNU guidelines say that every file in the tarball should have valid notices.

> The point of this comment is unclear,

Agreed.

> but it would seem to imply that this software is not free software.

This is not quite correct: the point is not whether this software
free or not, the point is whether its developers consider it free or
open source.

If a package is going to be hosted on Savannah, its developers should
call it free software.

> There are many points of view regarding the nature of contributions to
> software projects, even within the free software community.  It seems to me
> that the freest approach is to maintain the rights of users of the
software,
> to maintain the rights of contributors with respect to their contributions,
> and to maintain the rights of the project to advance and protect the
project
> as best as possible.

The GNU project is not about freedom of contributors or developers, it's
about freedom of users; in particular, it doesn't support the "right"
of developers to make their software (to say nothing of third party
contributions) proprietary.

Your agreement maintains such power for "Us", which is not desirable
<https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/assigning-copyright.html>.

> It also allows &quot;Us&quot; to defend the project
> against infringement, something we would not have otherwise.

Yes, "Us" would.

> Further, while individual contributors might have that
> right under some alternative approaches, it is not at all likely that they
> would prevail.

Do you mean GnuPG license is not enforceable? I'd disagree.

> Thus, the clauses in the GPL3 that stipulate various policies
> on derived works are likely to be ineffective without an interested entity.


Sure thing. The more interested entities the better chance
that at least one of them will be Harald Welte.

Thank you!

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