[PATCH 1/2] Add Google Inc. to AUTHORS as a contributor.

[Matt Armstrong]

David Bremner <david at tethera.net> writes:

> Matt Armstrong <marmstrong at google.com> writes:
>
>> By virtue of being a Google employee I'm required to contribute
>> software in the name of Google and not myself.

[...]

> I've no objection to this in principle, but
>
> 1) if we start updating AUTHORS after 7 years of neglect, I think we
> need to do a more systematic job.

Looking into this further, if AUTHORS file is essentially unmaintained,
I need not touch it.


> I'm tempted to script the output of "git shortlog" as part of the
> release process.
>
> In id:1469191654-5922-1-git-send-email-david at tethera.net, I've posted
> the beginnings of a mailmap file. What about adding something like
>
> Google Inc. (by way of Matt Armstrong)  <marmstrong at google.com>
>
> to the mailmap file?
>
> If that sounds reasonable to you, I'll leave it to you to play with the
> mailmap syntax to get what you want.

I think the @google.com in my email address is enough.  I don't need to
tweak my display name to mention "Google Inc." via .mailcap.


> 2) If you think the corporate overlords are fine with a mention of
> contribution in AUTHORS, that's also fine for me, but note that this is
> distinct from a claim of copyright.  There are copyright headers in
> every source file, so if you want to claim copyright on behalf of your
> employer (which is fine, I think we're not fussed about people adding
> themselves to copyright headers for anything more than 2 lines of change
> or so) then you'll want to update those headers. At least, that would be
> that safer option, rather than thinking such a claim is implicit.

Thanks for thinking about this David.

The good news: in looking into this further, the issue of leaving (c)
claims in code is secondary.  The primary thing I'm supposed to do is
send patches with my work email.

If I become a significant author in some file, adding a (c) Google makes
sense if that the normal thing to do in notmuch.  I'll keep that in
mind.

Google's open source lawyers tell me that regardless of what (c) marks
appear in code, the author of code (e.g. significant patches) retains
copyright unless other arrangements are made, such as those you see in
FSF projects (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html).  When it
comes to a real legal investigation things like the git commit log come
into play.  A "(c) Google Inc." is nice to have, especially if a project
typically maintains them with some rigor, but it isn't required or
particularly significant.