Re: [PATCH] serial: sirf: update copyright years to 2014

[Barry Song <21cnbao@gmail.com>]

2014-02-15 1:14 GMT+08:00 Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>:
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 10:27:17AM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
>> 2014-02-13 0:38 GMT+08:00 Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>:
>> > On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 12:26:35AM +0800, Barry Song wrote:
>> >> > Well, your 2012 change doesn't seem to be "significant" to warrent a
>> >> > normal copyright update, but the update is usually "less strict" than an
>> >> > original mark, so that might be ok, now that I review these closer.
>> >> >
>> >> > But I'd still prefer to get the opinion of your lawyer about this.
>> >>
>> >> Greg, thanks. i will ask csr lawyer to give some feedback if i can :-)
>> >>
>> >> i am not an expert of  copyright and i am really ignorant on it. in my
>> >> shallow understand, it seems it is difficult to evaluate what is
>> >> "significant" and what is not important as it highly depends on the
>> >> personal opinion? is this something like "there are a thousand Hamlets
>> >> in a thousand people's eyes"?
>> >
>> > It does "depend", but the "general" rule that most everyone follows, and
>> > what I have been advised to stick to, is "1/3 of the file is
>> > modified/added to" by a company/developer.  If that happens, then a
>> > copyright mark is allowed.  That has worked well over the many years of
>> > me having to deal with this, but the issue of "extending" the mark
>> > hasn't really been discussed, so I don't know if that same rule applies
>> > here or not.
>> >
>> > Feedback from your lawyer would be great to have on this, thanks.
>> >
>>
>> Greg, i am inviting our lawyer Cherrie into this, as she is maybe
>> busy, so we might wait some time.
>
> In my research, it's become apparent that the copyright notice should
> just be removed entirely from the files, as they don't mean anything
> from a legal standpoint, so updating them shouldn't really be done
> either, as they don't mean anything.  Although one could argue, if they
> don't mean anything, updating it shouldn't matter, but I don't think
> that the transitive is true here...
>
> It will be interesting to find out what your lawyer says about this.

Greg, all your comments have been forwarded to our layer and counsel.
pls wait for some time :-)

>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h

-barry