5 ms·

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

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.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Oh, we're going to court now? Seriously, this is getting way out of hand: when contributing to a project that has been going for more than a few decades you need to first familiarize yourself with how things are done to set your expectations for the interaction appropriately. The Linux kernel group does a pretty good job and they have their own ways of doing things. It's custom - and polite - to get the lay of the land before yelling 'robbery' when what actually happened is exactly what is supposed to happen: the bug got fixed, you got credited for the report and the maintainer spent some of their - precious - time on getting your proposal - because that is what a patch sent to LKML is - fixed and included. And that's ignoring for the moment the fact that the interaction wasn't at all like the OP suggested it was.
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]

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.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Oh, we're going to court now? Seriously, this is getting way out of hand: when contributing to a project that has been going for more than a few decades you need to first familiarize yourself with how things are done to set your expectations for the interaction appropriately. The Linux kernel group does a pretty good job and they have their own ways of doing things. It's custom - and polite - to get the lay of the land before yelling 'robbery' when what actually happened is exactly what is supposed to happen: the bug got fixed, you got credited for the report and the maintainer spent some of their - precious - time on getting your proposal - because that is what a patch sent to LKML is - fixed and included. And that's ignoring for the moment the fact that the interaction wasn't at all like the OP suggested it was.

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]