scala.xml.MetaData: Copyright 2008 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Simon Ochsenreither]

Hi everyone!

I just wonder ... isn't "All Rights Reserved." the opposite of the
open source licence Scala is released under?

I wonder if it is possible to either
a) add a clarification to that line,
b) modify it, if the code was properly donated or
c) stop pirating, if there is no actual licence.

Thanks and bye!

Simon

[Paul Phillips]

On 4/22/11 5:58 PM, Simon Ochsenreither wrote:
> I wonder if it is possible to either
> a) add a clarification to that line,
> b) modify it, if the code was properly donated or
> c) stop pirating, if there is no actual licence.

https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/ticket/3405
"Clarify usage of Google copyright in xml sourcecode"

I agree it should go. Even if there is some legitimate reason for it to
be there, it's not nearly valuable enough to compensate for planting
seeds of license doubt in anyone who happens to notice it.

[Simon Ochsenreither]

> https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/ticket/3405
> "Clarify usage of Google copyright in xml sourcecode"
>
> I agree it should go. Even if there is some legitimate reason for it to
> be there, it's not nearly valuable enough to compensate for planting
> seeds of license doubt in anyone who happens to notice it.

Thanks! Guess I should have checked trac before writing a mail ...

Bye,

Simon

[Randall R Schulz]

On Friday April 22 2011, Simon Ochsenreither wrote:
> Hi everyone!
>
> I just wonder ... isn't "All Rights Reserved." the opposite of the
> open source licence Scala is released under?

The copyright holder can reserve the rights to themselves and
simultaneously specify a license governing acceptable uses.

> I wonder if it is possible to either
> a) add a clarification to that line,
> b) modify it, if the code was properly donated or
> c) stop pirating, if there is no actual licence.
>
> Thanks and bye!
>
>
> Simon

Randall Schulz

[Josh Suereth]

If this was committed by a Google employee (and not just a copy-paste mistake), then you really need to contact a Google lawyer before touching that copyright.

I cannot state anymore in this email than you should talk to both: a lawyer and Google.

[Paul Phillips]

On 4/22/11 9:21 PM, Josh Suereth wrote:
> If this was committed by a Google employee (and not just a copy-paste
> mistake), then you really need to contact a Google lawyer before
> touching that copyright.
>
> I cannot state anymore in this email than you should talk to both: a
> lawyer and Google.

If it's even one tenth as scary a situation as you make it sound, my
preferred approach would be not to touch the copyright in any way, and
nuke any files containing those characters from orbit. I should do more
of that anyway, copyright issue or no.

Jeez, we're talking about MetaData extends Iterable[MetaData] here, this
is not exactly the stuff of industrial espionage.

[Antonio Cunei]

On 23/04/2011 06:21, Josh Suereth wrote:
> If this was committed by a Google employee (and not just a copy-paste
> mistake), then you really need to contact a Google lawyer before
> touching that copyright.
>
> I cannot state anymore in this email than you should talk to both: a
> lawyer and Google.
>

We are in talks with Google concerning the matter, and have been for
quite a while, so it's not something we have forgotten about.

At this time, a slightly modified version of the Scala CLA is under the
scrutiny of Google's lawyers, and we are waiting to hear from them for
their final approval. The last email exchange took place three weeks ago.

The matter is currently being dealt with in the best manner, therefore,
and in a very friendly way. There is no need for concern.

Toni

[Burak Emir]

I updated the bug https://lampsvn.epfl.ch/trac/scala/ticket/3405 with some comments.

I promise to ping the legal team one of these days.

Apart from that, maybe it would be helpful to have a small "story" on the scala-lang.org site that explains copyright, license and CLA? Something along the lines of http://producingoss.com/en/copyright-assignment.html, from a Scala project perspective.

-- Burak

--
Burak Emir
--
http://burak.emir.googlepages.com