PERFORCE change 119718 for review

[Robert Watson]

On Mon, 14 May 2007, Alexander Leidinger wrote:

> Quoting Roman Divacky <rdivacky at FreeBSD.org> (from Sat, 12 May 2007 08:49:39 
> GMT):
>
> //depot/projects/soc2007/rdivacky/linux_futex/sys/amd64/linux32/linux32_support.s#3 
> (text+ko)
>> ====
>> 
>> @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
>> /*-
>> - * Copyright (c) 1993 The Regents of the University of California.
>> + * Copyright (c) 2007 The FreeBSD Project
>>  * All rights reserved.
>>  *
>>  * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
>
> Would you please do a forced commit to explain the reason for the license 
> change?

I've also replied to this e-mail privately, but since there seems to be a 
common confusion regarding this, perhaps a public e-mail is desirable.  In 
recent years, we have expressed a strong preference against using "The FreeBSD 
Project" as a pseudonym copyright holder for specific code contributions.  It 
does not constitute an assignment, so it doesn't allow the FreeBSD Project 
(which is also not an incorporated entity) to change the license, and it also 
masks the identity of the true copyright holder (the author).  As we know from 
the issue of adjusting licenses, which has come up before, being able to 
easily identify the true copyright holder is very important.  If assignment is 
desired, then copyrights can be assigned to the FreeBSD Foundation, but that 
requires real-world paperwork and so needs to be coordinated with the 
Foundation.  Finally, copyright law varies by country, and many countries do 
not actually allow assignment of a copyright, so caution should be applied in 
even assuming it can be done.

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge