RE: [PATCH 07/15] net/ena/base: update copyrights comments

["Brandes, Shai" <shaibran@amazon.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit@amd.com>
> Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 11:38 AM
> To: Brandes, Shai <shaibran@amazon.com>; Hemant Agrawal
> <hemant.agrawal@oss.nxp.com>
> Cc: dev@dpdk.org; Hemant Agrawal <hemant.agrawal@nxp.com>;
> techboard@dpdk.org
> Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] [PATCH 07/15] net/ena/base: update copyrights
> comments
> 
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> 
> 
> 
> On 7/8/2024 8:02 AM, Brandes, Shai wrote:
> >
> >
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: Hemant Agrawal <hemant.agrawal@oss.nxp.com>
> >> Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 7:09 AM
> >> To: Ferruh Yigit <ferruh.yigit@amd.com>; Brandes, Shai
> >> <shaibran@amazon.com>
> >> Cc: dev@dpdk.org; Hemant Agrawal <hemant.agrawal@nxp.com>
> >> Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] [PATCH 07/15] net/ena/base: update copyrights
> >> comments
> >>
> >> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do
> >> not click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender
> >> and know the content is safe.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 08-07-2024 00:27, Ferruh Yigit wrote:
> >>> On 7/2/2024 3:46 PM, shaibran@amazon.com wrote:
> >>>> From: Shai Brandes <shaibran@amazon.com>
> >>>>
> >>>> copyright dates are not mandatory to be maintained, therefore the
> >>>> range of years was removed.
> >>>> In addition, the copyrights lines were separated into two comments.
> >>>>
> >>>> Signed-off-by: Shai Brandes <shaibran@amazon.com>
> >>>> ---
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.c                  | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.h                  | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_defs/ena_admin_defs.h  | 5 +++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_defs/ena_common_defs.h | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_defs/ena_eth_io_defs.h | 5 +++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_defs/ena_includes.h    | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_defs/ena_regs_defs.h   | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_eth_com.c              | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_eth_com.h              | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_plat.h                 | 4 ++--
> >>>>   drivers/net/ena/base/ena_plat_dpdk.h            | 4 ++--
> >>>>   11 files changed, 24 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)
> >>>>
> >>>> diff --git a/drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.c
> >>>> b/drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.c index ad4f3f9431..5f46e692b3
> >>>> 100644
> >>>> --- a/drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.c
> >>>> +++ b/drivers/net/ena/base/ena_com.c
> >>>> @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
> >>>> -/* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
> >>>> - * Copyright (c) 2015-2020 Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
> >>>> +/* SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause */
> >>>> +/* Copyright (c) Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
> >>>>    * All rights reserved.
> >>>>    */
> >>>>
> >>> Hi Shai,
> >>>
> >>> I don't know about implication of dropping the copyright year
> >>> altogether, we need to ask to an expert.
> >>>
> >>> What I know is, a copyright expires after some year, so to hold the
> >>> copyright, there needs to be a starting point. And people use ranges
> >>> to extend this copyright year.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Instead of removing the year altogether, it make sense to me to just
> >>> keep the initial year and don't add range later as code updated,
> >>> this also will be more consistent with rest of the code.
> >>> Let me drop this patch from the set, and learn more from the experts.
> >>> It can be included later, I don't think this is something urgent.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Another aspect is, the history of a source file can be acquired from
> >>> the pubic git repository, so when it is first merged, when updated,
> >>> all these information is available.
> >>> So this feels like no need to record these days in the source code
> >>> files but I don't know if these git repository metadata information is
> legally
> >>>   valid and accepted.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> And I am not quite sure if it has really any value to worry about
> >>> copyright for a publicly available device driver code anyway, but
> >>> this is not my domain.
> >>
> >> Hi Shai,
> >>
> >>      Will you please just update the copyright year instead of
> >> removing the year completely?  e.g. 2015-2020, 2024 or 2015-2024
> >>
> >> -Hemant
> > [Brandes, Shai]
> > Hi Ferruh and Hemant, aws removed the copyrights' years range
> completely for all our open source drivers based on our legal team and the
> open source article that states that there is no need to provide years or
> ranges of years for copyright notices in an OSS project.
> > https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/copyright-notices-in-open-so
> > urce-software-projects leaving this patch out or using a different
> > years range will create code difference between the dpdk driver and
> > the HAL code it consumes, which is common to all ENA drivers (which is
> > less maintainable.)
> >
> 
> Hi Shai,
> 
> I made the comment to make sure you are protected, but if this is the
> request coming from your legal team I think you already know what you are
> doing and I am OK to continue with the patch.
> 
> By the way, thanks for the blog, it can be reference for future discussions.
> 
> 
[Brandes, Shai] sure thing. And thank you! I appreciate the time you invested for reviewing the patchset.