In an abundance of caution this restores “Bitcoin Developers” to the COPYING file in case there were contributors before that point in time that would object to the current label. It’s harmless and more pedantically correct.
(Change extracted from the Bitcoin-abc github)
In an abundance of caution this restores "Bitcoin Developers" to the COPYING file in
case there were contributors before that point in time that would object to the
current label. It's harmless and more pedantically correct.
[Change extracted from the Bitcoin-abc repository, commit message by gmaxwell]
Signed-off-by: Gregory Maxwell <greg@xiph.org>
The original Bitcoin software released by Satoshi included Satoshi Nakamoto in the license.txt and source code files.
e.g. https://github.com/trottier/original-bitcoin/blob/master/license.txt
Should this be restored too?
Further, it is my understanding that copyright notices should be applied to every file - should all file headers be updated with the correct copyright notices?
I have just read the related discussion here: https://github.com/Bitcoin-ABC/bitcoin-abc/pull/89
It does appear (thanks @MeshCollider) that Satoshi changed the notice to “Bitcoin Developers”.
I still believe that this change should be made to all files, not just the COPYING file.
The original Bitcoin software released by Satoshi included Satoshi Nakamoto in the license.txt and source code files.
He changed it to the text my change includes himself.
Why is it possible to copyright this to the Bitcoin developers in general?
Is there an actual copyright?
Why has Satoshi been removed in general because it was his original creation?
It just was not clear to me due to insufficient grammar. Thank you for the clarification @MeshCollider .
Still doesn’t answer the question if there is an actual copyright existing.
FWIW, I contributed under the original listing. I did not like the project rename and I personally have a general preference for the original attribution.
We could rename the project back, but I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. ACK anyhow.
@chriswheeler Which other files are wrong? This mistake was introduced 3b00e7c, so it seems like a sole instance.
I think he means the copyright in individual source files, one could re-add the (C) Bitcoin developers there too, for the files that existed before the rename or with code moved from files that existed before the rename (with the respective date range of before the project rename). Would be quite a lot of work tho.
We could rename the project back, but I don’t think it’s worth the hassle.
I agree. In any case, I agree with the suggestion that the headers get updated everywhere. But I don’t see a problem with making that another PR. I’d prefer to do a change that touches every file later in the development cycle when we’re not backporting everything to 0.15.x still. (unless someone argues otherwise).
I’d prefer to not delay an improvement everyone agrees with (I think?) while waiting on a change that is going to touch 300 files. This change can also just apply to the 0.15 branch, not so much for a all-files toucher.
Keep in mind, no copyright holder has ever complained here (beyond, I suppose, my comment above that I also prefer the change… and it’s not like I really matter.) so this is lower urgency.
@awitherow Whenever someone writes code, it is automatically copyrighted by them, and remains so until they assign it to someone else. There is no “Bitcoin developers” or “Bitcoin Core developers” legal entity - these are just English phrases that mean each contributor retains copyright to his own work.
It’s redundant, but harmless, to have both lines present, since they mean the same thing.
The “Core” suffix may sound nice, but it suddenly created a gap between Bitcoin developers and “Bitcoin Core” developers where some people think the later is an organisation (which is obviously not true).
Yeah - it was intended to create a distinction between bitcoin the currency, and the node software, as that was confusing people at the time. Of course, it is misinterpreted in the most horrible and creative ways.
