Re: pgsql: Add reusable routine for making arrays unique.

On 2020-Jan-04, Peter Geoghegan wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 6, 2019 at 8:03 PM Thomas Munro <tmunro@postgresql.org> wrote:
> > Add reusable routine for making arrays unique.
> 
> I noticed that some of the copyright notices added by this commit look
> like this:
> 
> + * Portions Copyright (c) 2019, PostgreSQL Global Development Group
> 
> Shouldn't this simply read "Copyright (c) 2019 ..."? We're not sharing
> the Copyright with Regents of the University of California, or anyone
> else, so there it is not just a portion.

Looking at the stats, it's clear that it took a lot of code from other
files, so it seems disingenuous to claim that it doesn't have even a
single line that isn't copyrighted by UCB regents.  I've seen this
argument used even for files that are completely new: they are likely
affected some API design aspect of existing code copyright of UCB
regents, so it too would have Portions (c) them.

> It would be nice to have some general guidance on copyright notices in
> new files. I usually just copy what I see in nearby files, but that
> doesn't seem particularly principled.

I think the easiest is to state that all files, even new files are
Portions (c) each of these entities, period.  Trying to distinguish code
that's not even a single line derived from UCB Regents seems really
labor-intensive.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera                https://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
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