Adopt REUSE standard for copyright and licensing about subed

[seabass-labrax]

#30

[rndusr]

I never would've thought one of my half-dead projects would get a legal department. :) I know pretty much nothing about software licensing and don't really understand what this would do. I always assumed that by contributing to other people's projects I would license my contribution under the license of the project. (You're probably getting a chuckle out of my naivety. :)) Who would do a software licensing audit for subed and why? Sounds like something a corporation would do?

could you confirm that the Git history hasn't been changed?

The Git history should contain all the contributions that are not from me. I may have pushed a rebase at some point, but I don't think I'd obscure someone else's work like that. But I can't guarantee anything.

screenshot.png

I don't care who does what with the screenshot, but I really like the frame and the dialog. Unless your friend is Frankenstein, I'd like to keep it. :) Sorry if I'm a downer, but as the owner of this project I'm ultimately responsible and this sounds like boring work that has no practical effect. I can't find the time or energy to write code for this project, so I doubt I'll always remember to check the copyright notices if someone contributes. And I don't want to scare people away. If I wanted to fix a bug in someone else's project and I was greeted with legal stuff, there's a significant chance I wouldn't bother. So I'm basically asking: Why should I care?

[seabass-labrax]

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond :) My apologies for the pathetic attempt at reciprocating your speedy response, and indeed for the content of my last message: I must have accidentally left legal-textbook-mode on ;)

I never would've thought one of my half-dead projects would get a legal department. :)

I know pretty much nothing about software licensing and don't really understand what this would do. I always assumed that by contributing to other people's projects I would license my contribution under the license of the project. (You're probably getting a chuckle out of my naivety. :))

I wouldn't dream of laughing at you, and besides, you are quite right! The REUSE standard doesn't replace that convention, it just makes it easier for people to work out what a file is licensed under.

Who would do a software licensing audit for subed and why? Sounds like something a corporation would do?

The biggest benefit of REUSE is probably to software distributions. For instance, currently every package in Debian is manually checked to make sure it can be legally included. This takes ages because every project has a different way of listing the legal stuff: some have a LICENSE file, some have COPYING, some have it at the top of each file...

REUSE is intended to be a standard for this, so anyone who wants to bundle code into a distribution (be that a Linux distribution or something like Doom Emacs) or otherwise copy the code can automatically add all the credits and licenses.

I don't care who does what with the screenshot, but I really like the frame and the dialog.

It sounds to me like CC0 is perfect then: it is essentially a notice saying "you can do anything you want with the image, but don't sue if you get into trouble with someone else"! Indeed, I also really like your screenshot :)

Unless your friend is Frankenstein, I'd like to keep it. :)

Actually my friend is called Ciarán, but I know he is into the horror genre so I shall have to ask him if there's any relation...!

... and this sounds like boring work that has no practical effect.

The long mundane work is the work I've just done :) However, I do realise that you may not want to take up the responsibility of checking that all contributions have the correct headers.

Therefore, I've created another pull request (#34) which you may find more appealing. Instead of requiring the name of every copyright holder in each file, it just has 'The subed Authors'. There's a file called AUTHORS.org that is not necessarily a list of copyright holders, but just allows contributors to put their names there if they would like to be credited.

The only disadvantage to this way is that it's more difficult to contact all the copyright holders, for instance to relicense the project. However, you've chosen a fine license for your project already - with an or-later clause no less! :) - so I don't think that's an important limitation.

And I don't want to scare people away. If I wanted to fix a bug in someone else's project and I was greeted with legal stuff, there's a significant chance I wouldn't bother.

Personally, I'd have rather the opposite reaction! For instance, the inclusion of these kinds of notices would reassure me that the project isn't just farming out work for what will become a proprietary software package. Your repository was already reassuring in this, what with the GPL statements, but there's no harm in making it explicit with REUSE.

Please do let me know what you think of the revised pull request; I'm more than happy to try to answer any further questions you might have about REUSE :)

[rndusr]

Thank you for explaining this to a legal dyslexic. I don't like the "overhead" of licensing stuff all over the place, but it's much better than the previous PR. And if it helps package maintainers, I'm game.

> I don't care who does what with the screenshot, but I really like the frame and the dialog. It sounds to me like CC0 is perfect then: it is essentially a notice saying "you can do anything you want with the image, but don't sue if you get into trouble with someone else"! Indeed, I also really like your screenshot :)

I think I forgot to mention that the movie in the screenshot is public domain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Wouldn%27t_Die But I guess that doesn't matter if the screenshot is licensed under CC0.

the inclusion of these kinds of notices would reassure me that the project isn't just farming out work for what will become a proprietary software package.

That's a scenario I find hard to imagine for a small Emacs package. But if MS offers me millions, I could get weak, so it's better to be prepared. :) Thanks again for taking the extra time.

[seabass-labrax]

I don't like the "overhead" of licensing stuff all over the place, but
it's much better than the previous PR. And if it helps package
maintainers, I'm game.

Indeed, the .license files are a bit messy. Ideally, the license
comments would be at the top of each file (as in the Makefile, for
instance). However, since Emacs reads that first comment line for
file-local variables, I used the fallback option of having separate
license files. I'm intending to bring this up with the developers of
REUSE and/or Emacs so that in the future it could be neater.

I think I forgot to mention that the movie in the screenshot is
public domain:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brain_That_Wouldn%27t_Die

Ah, that's nice! It could make rather good Sunday afternoon
entertainment :)

the inclusion of these kinds of notices would reassure me that the
project isn't just farming out work for what will become a
proprietary software package.

That's a scenario I find hard to imagine for a small Emacs package.
But if MS offers me millions, I could get weak, so it's better to be
prepared. :)

I don't think that I personally have such funds as Microsoft to finance
your retirement to the Mediterranean, but please accept my sincere
gratitude for subed all the same!

Thanks again for taking the extra time.

Likewise, thank you for taking the extra time to review my alternative
proposal.

As a side note, I'm writing this in Emacs with mail-mode, Magit and
Forge. I won't claim I wasn't warned it would come to this ;)

Unless you'd like to discuss further in this thread, I'm happy for this
issue to be closed now.

Happy Easter!

[rndusr]

Sorry, I forgot about this. Thanks for cleaning up. :)