Updating the Copyright

[jasnell]

Back in the io.js days, the copyright attribution in the Node.js source code was changed from:

Copyright Joyent, Inc. and other Node contributors. All rights reserved.

to

Copyright Node.js contributors. All rights reserved.

The explicit licensing header information was also removed from each source file and moved into the LICENSE.

The change to the copyright notice was made without Joyent's approval and needs to be switched back.

I will be opening a PR that attaches the following statement to each *.js file in our source tree:

// Copyright Joyent, Inc. and other Node.js contributors.
// Current Licensing information for this software may be found in 
// the LICENSE file in the root of the source distribution or online at
// https://github.com/nodejs/node/blob/master/LICENSE

Because this Copyright statement explicitly includes the "and other Node.js contributors", there is no loss of Copyright assignment.

/cc @nodejs/tsc @nodejs/ctc

[williamkapke]

There were some in .h, .stp, .rc, & .cc files too.
It sounds like they need to be included too...?

[ljharb]

Why does the comment need to be in every file? Isn't that information redundant given the root-level license, and the git history?

[bnoordhuis]

What @ljharb said. It should only need an update to the LICENSE file, no need to bring the boilerplate back unless the Foundation's lawyers say so (and in that case I'd like to hear their argumentation.)

Also, "Copyright Joyent, Inc. and other Node contributors" - I don't think Joyent gets to make copyright claims to code they didn't author. Which is most code in the tree but especially new files.

[jasnell]

@mikeal can likely expand on this but the request from the legal committee as I understand it is to restore the copyright and license statements in the individual files. For now the PR that I am adding will add the header to every *.js, *.cc, and *.h file in benchmarks, lib, src, and test. We can pull the header back out of the files that are not appropriate.

Regarding the specific language in the updated header, I'm going to leave it to the lawyers to determine which wording is most appropriate.

[mikeal]

Here's the deal.

The terms of the MIT license state that you cannot modify the attribution. Guess what we did? Altered the attribution.

The attribution needs to be restored to the prior state. If we want to modify it later, like consolidating or reducing to an SPDX definition, we can but we need the consent of the copyright holders.

The files effected were authored by Ryan Dahl and/or contributors who operated under the prior CLA with Joyent so the notice containing Joyent, Inc is accurate. We do not need to add this notice to any other files than those that it was removed from a few years ago. New files or files that never contained the notice do not need to be modified.

[bnoordhuis]

The files effected were authored by Ryan Dahl and/or contributors who operated under the prior CLA with Joyent so the notice containing Joyent, Inc is accurate.

How so? The CLA didn't transfer copyright.

EDIT: To clarify, Ryan transferred his copyright to Joyent but no one else did and that wasn't part of the CLA.

[jasnell]

I have opened the PR. Without a doubt it includes files that do not need the attribution included. I will need help in identifying what files those are. @mikeal: please have the legal folk review the specific attribution to see if that meets the requirement or not.

[mikeal]

@bnoordhuis correct, it didn't transfer copyright but it gave a license for all relevant rights to Joyent.

[bnoordhuis]

I'm afraid I still don't understand. What are "all relevant rights"? My understanding when I was asked to retroactively sign the CLA was that it was an affirmation that I had been legally able to contribute the code; that my employer couldn't make claims to ownership, for example.

Also, who is asking for reinstatement of the attribution and why? Joyent, the Foundation, someone else? Names, please!

[jasnell]

@mikeal @bnoordhuis ... it would likely be worthwhile to add this to the agenda for either the TSC or CTC agendas. Given that the request is coming from the Legal Committee, it likely would need to fall under the private section but I'll leave that to @mikeal and @rvagg to decide.

[mikeal]

Let me be clear about something, we broke the terms of our own license.

It's something that needs to be fixed, there's not a lot of room for interpretation on that.

[bnoordhuis]

Nonsense. "all copies or substantial portions of the Software" - note the "or". Every source tarball has a LICENSE file in it and that satisfies the MIT license's attribution requirement.

If the Foundation's lawyers disagree, I would like to hear them explain why. If we are in violation, then so are a ton of other open source projects.

Can you answer my questions from #174 (comment)?