[Reuse] Where to put a licence header

[Matija Šuklje]

Hullo,

do we want to include at least the LQ (if not Legal) team back 
into this discussion, to have more legal minds look at it?

On ponedeljek, 08. april 2019 13:51:51 CEST Carmen Bianca 
Bakker wrote:
> and it seems incredibly unlikely to me that you will
> face legal repercussions if you put a copyright notice on an
> uncopyrightable work.

Most likely true, if we’re talking about something that is perhaps 
not copyrightable or arguably so (e.g. config, build, header 
files, etc.).

Now, if you were to slap your copyright notice on someone else’s 
work (and not yours), it could qualify as plagiarism though.

> When I do
> my translations for GNOME and put the "This file is distributed
> under the same license as $PACKAGE" notice at the top, I'm

The “licensed same as X” can be problematic, esp. if X’s license 
later changes (or X disappears, gets renames) and then you don’t 
know which one applies etc. etc.

Which I imagine is part of the reason why REUSE spec calls for an 
explicit SPDX ID.

> The translation is not software and it stretches the definition
> of what it means to be a "documentation file".

True. Luckily, more and more project realise that code and docs 
(and fonts and icons, sounds, etc.) should have different licenses

BTW, there is a public discussion on how to handle this here (and 
in the issues linked therein):
https://github.com/reusesoftware/reuse/issues/14

IMHO, I think for stuff that you are either think is not 
copyrightable to start with and/or you’re pretty confident it is 
so trivial it at least shouldn’t be, just release that under 
CC0-1.0 to avoid any questions.

(The only issue with CC0-1.0 might be that it explicitly does not 
license any patents, so it might trigger some companies’ lawyers. 
But then again, I really wonder where they think of finding a 
patent¹ in an icon or config file.)


cheers,
Matija Šuklje
—
1	Before anyone mentions Apple, that was a _design patent_, 
which is USA-speak for what in Europe is commonly called a 
_model_ (i.e. a distinct 2D or 3D object, but not a trade mark).
-- 
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