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Re: [RFC PATCH] CODING_STYLE: Establish a policy with regards to copyright notices


  • To: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@xxxxxxxx>
  • From: Alejandro Vallejo <alejandro.garciavallejo@xxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 12:14:28 +0100
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  • Cc: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@xxxxxxxxxx>, Anthony PERARD <anthony.perard@xxxxxxxxxx>, Michal Orzel <michal.orzel@xxxxxxx>, "Julien Grall" <julien@xxxxxxx>, Roger Pau Monné <roger.pau@xxxxxxxxxx>, Stefano Stabellini <sstabellini@xxxxxxxxxx>, <xen-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Delivery-date: Wed, 28 Jan 2026 11:14:46 +0000
  • List-id: Xen developer discussion <xen-devel.lists.xenproject.org>

On Wed Jan 28, 2026 at 11:45 AM CET, Jan Beulich wrote:
> On 28.01.2026 10:09, Alejandro Vallejo wrote:
>> The refinement also applies to the second bullet point, so I can add it as a
>> separate paragraph stating existing notices are to never be modified and only
>> removed with the express consent of the current holder(s).
>
> That's interesting, as it may be getting increasingly difficult in practice.
> Often you can't get hold of the holder(s), to the degree that - as we're all
> growing older - at some point they may not be there at all anymore. Yet if
> not having such notices is going to be a goal of the project, retaining some
> indefinitely can't be the intention either.
>
>> Do you have a take for/against moving all existing notices to a separate 
>> NOTICES
>> file (a-la Apache). The existing file for them (in httpd) looks like this, so
>> they took the liberty to rewording the banners to be more digestible in 
>> single
>> file inclusion.
>> 
>>      Apache HTTP Server
>>      Copyright 2026 The Apache Software Foundation.
>> 
>>      This product includes software developed at
>>      The Apache Software Foundation (https://www.apache.org/).
>> 
>>      Portions of this software were developed at the National Center
>>      for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of
>>      Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
>> 
>>      This software contains code derived from the RSA Data Security
>>      Inc. MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm, including various
>>      modifications by Spyglass Inc., Carnegie Mellon University, and
>>      Bell Communications Research, Inc (Bellcore).
>> 
>>      This software contains code derived from the PCRE library pcreposix.c
>>      source code, written by Philip Hazel, Copyright 1997-2004
>>      by the University of Cambridge, England.
>> 
>> It'd blur the scope of existing holders, but code moves and so do their
>> contributions. Keeping a banner on a file after a refactor is just
>> misattribution.
>> 
>> ------------------
>> 
>> In short. There's 1 question in 2 forms I'd like to have an answer to from a
>> core maintainers.
>> 
>> Would you be willing to ack a change along these lines?
>>   1. to a Copyright Notice policy within CODING_STYLE.
>
> Likely, once we've agreed on suitable wording.
>
>>   2. to the relegation of existing notices to a NOTICES file in the style of
>>      Apache. Apache in particular mandates the file not be touched unless
>>      absolutely required for legal reasons.
>
> Very unlikely. While likely I wouldn't veto it, I don't like such moving 
> around
> of things. If we want to get them out of the source files, they should be
> dropped altogether.

Ack to both, thanks for the input!

Cheers,
Alejandro



 


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