man-pages-6.14 released

[Alejandro Colomar]

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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