6 ms·

I think it depends a lot on how much the final patch was based on the one he wrote. There are a few phases of solving an issue: Identified: They have found an

I think it depends a lot on how much the final patch was based on the one he wrote. There are a few phases of solving an issue: Identified: They have found an issue and reported it. Debugged: They found the cause of the issue. Fixed: They wrote the fix. It seems that Ariel should be credited for somewhere between Debugged and Fixed. But is only explicitly given credit for the first "tier" of solving the problem. It would have been nice to explain a bit more the work that Ariel put in. But I agree that I wouldn't expect an inferior (by the maintainer's perspective) patch to be included just to give that credit. But a sentence explaining how Ariel contributed would likely be much appreciated.

leereeves 3y ago
Unfortunately the author wasn't comfortable sharing his patch ("this mailing list is private so I cannot link to the original patch I sent"), but a comment now buried deep in the discussion [1] says: > The only difference between the patch that was accepted and the one that was proposed is where the fix is. In one case it's in an ifdef outside of an if. In the other it's in an inner if statement. That's it. This is a difference in style not a technical difference in the patch at all. It sounds like the author wrote the fix and the maintainer merely edited it to fit the project style. If that truly is all that was done, how hard would it have been to ask the author to quickly make that change? 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672558
- bluGill 3y ago
  IF the patch was only edited for style or other minor issues, then the copyright remains with the original contributor. If the patch was completely rewritten from scratch and is very different then not. (linux does not require copyright attribution) If the poster wants to get a lawyer he can probably force rewriting git history to give him credit. Is it worth it - probably not.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    But the OP has copyright. The LKML archive is there for everybody to see, they wrote a bit of code. That code was then modified and that modified version was entered into the repo under the maintainers name, as it usually goes. And that's because when you mail LKML you play by their rules, which have been made very explicit: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-patches.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-pat... Note the bit about the Co-developed-by tag: "A Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer along with the original author. This is useful at times when multiple people work on a single patch. Note, this person also needs to have a Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well." and "Note, you did not properly sign-off on this commit, so it couldn't be applied anyway :(" From the exchange between the OP and the kernel maintainer. Which may have been the whole issue.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      > From the exchange between the OP and the kernel maintainer. Which may have been the whole issue. Well, if it was, the maintainer didn't communicate that well/at all: "I prefer my version".
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        That was made up by the OP.
      - rewmie 3y ago
        > Well, if it was, the maintainer didn't communicate that well/at all: You're making the mistake of accepting at face value a one-sided account of an issue, and in the process failing to even check what the answer actually was.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      None of that changes the fact that the original patch is copyright by the author, and it is highly likely the courts will consider the changes style issues which do not change copyright ownership. Unless the kernel maintainer can show he didn't look at the patch, only the description of the issue and then recreated the patch from scratch.
- ariel-miculas 3y ago
  It's now available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org/msg221962.html https://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org/m...
  - hluska 3y ago
    Many are asking and I’d like your thoughts. Why did you misrepresent their words to the extent you did?
    - ariel-miculas 3y ago
      I don't have access to the private emails between me and Michael Ellerman anymore because I exchanged emails with him from my work email address. I've switched companies since then so unfortunately I don't have access to that conversation anymore. I do remember he pointed me to another bug that I could fix if I wanted to become a Linux kernel contributor. The first part I was paraphrasing from what I could remember.
      - hluska 3y ago
        [flagged]

leereeves 3y ago

Unfortunately the author wasn't comfortable sharing his patch ("this mailing list is private so I cannot link to the original patch I sent"), but a comment now buried deep in the discussion [1] says: > The only difference between the patch that was accepted and the one that was proposed is where the fix is. In one case it's in an ifdef outside of an if. In the other it's in an inner if statement. That's it. This is a difference in style not a technical difference in the patch at all. It sounds like the author wrote the fix and the maintainer merely edited it to fit the project style. If that truly is all that was done, how hard would it have been to ask the author to quickly make that change? 1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672558 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37672558

bluGill 3y ago
IF the patch was only edited for style or other minor issues, then the copyright remains with the original contributor. If the patch was completely rewritten from scratch and is very different then not. (linux does not require copyright attribution) If the poster wants to get a lawyer he can probably force rewriting git history to give him credit. Is it worth it - probably not.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  But the OP has copyright. The LKML archive is there for everybody to see, they wrote a bit of code. That code was then modified and that modified version was entered into the repo under the maintainers name, as it usually goes. And that's because when you mail LKML you play by their rules, which have been made very explicit: https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-patches.html https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.17/process/submitting-pat... Note the bit about the Co-developed-by tag: "A Co-Developed-by: states that the patch was also created by another developer along with the original author. This is useful at times when multiple people work on a single patch. Note, this person also needs to have a Signed-off-by: line in the patch as well." and "Note, you did not properly sign-off on this commit, so it couldn't be applied anyway :(" From the exchange between the OP and the kernel maintainer. Which may have been the whole issue.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > From the exchange between the OP and the kernel maintainer. Which may have been the whole issue. Well, if it was, the maintainer didn't communicate that well/at all: "I prefer my version".
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      That was made up by the OP.
    - rewmie 3y ago
      > Well, if it was, the maintainer didn't communicate that well/at all: You're making the mistake of accepting at face value a one-sided account of an issue, and in the process failing to even check what the answer actually was.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    None of that changes the fact that the original patch is copyright by the author, and it is highly likely the courts will consider the changes style issues which do not change copyright ownership. Unless the kernel maintainer can show he didn't look at the patch, only the description of the issue and then recreated the patch from scratch.
ariel-miculas 3y ago
It's now available here: https://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org/msg221962.html https://www.mail-archive.com/linuxppc-dev@lists.ozlabs.org/m...
- hluska 3y ago
  Many are asking and I’d like your thoughts. Why did you misrepresent their words to the extent you did?
  - ariel-miculas 3y ago
    I don't have access to the private emails between me and Michael Ellerman anymore because I exchanged emails with him from my work email address. I've switched companies since then so unfortunately I don't have access to that conversation anymore. I do remember he pointed me to another bug that I could fix if I wanted to become a Linux kernel contributor. The first part I was paraphrasing from what I could remember.
    - hluska 3y ago
      [flagged]