More authors in copyright notice?

[jl-wynen]

Our copyright notice (and package metadata) lists 'Scipp contributors' as authors with a link to the Scipp GH org. The org only shows the core devs. This means that other contributors are not directly visible. This could be an issue esp. for ESS* packages.

Should we change the copyright to list the specific package / repo instead of the org? Or is there an other way to clearly include everyone?

[nvaytet]

Maybe each project could have it different? In the copier template? For example we could have ESSsans contributors, that would point to https://github.com/scipp/esssans/graphs/contributors ?

[SimonHeybrock]

Or link to a page in the docs such as https://scipp.github.io/esssans/developer/index.html, where contributors can be added?

But note that in any case, copyright holder is ESS, not any of their employees like us, as far as I understand?

[nvaytet]

I guess copyright holder is ESS for ESS employees but this being an open source project what do we do if we have external contributors?

[jl-wynen]

They hold the copyright for their contributions.

As I understand it, if we use (with the correct package inserted)

# Copyright (c) 2024 $PACKAGE contributors

then this means that every contributor, or their employer, holds the copyright to their contributions.

I think that if we use the organisation instead of the package in the copyright notice, we don't include all contributors. But we should.

[nvaytet]

Doesn't this go back to an old discussion we had about whether we even need the copyright notice in every file?
We should keep the license identifier, but can we just remove the copyright (and also the annoying year that comes with it?)

[jl-wynen]

That only solves part of the problem. We still have to name authors in the license file.

[nvaytet]

That only solves part of the problem. We still have to name authors in the license file.

True 😅

[SimonHeybrock]

Not sure anyone who ever contributed a single line should hold copyright on the entire project?

[jl-wynen]

They don't They have the copyright of that line. But we can't reasonable track this with comments. This is Git's job.

[MridulS]

In theory it doesn't even matter I think? Depending on national law they (or their employer) just own the copyright for their contributions, doesn't matter what we put in the header, we don't require any CLA. Something like # Copyright (c) 2024 $PACKAGE contributors should be just fine. We don't really need to have the names in an author's list either, it's just a good to have from what I know.

[jl-wynen]

Agree. My point is to move away from listing the organisation members as copyright holders.