Re: musl licensing

[Rich Felker <dalias@libc.org>]

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On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 11:16:49AM -0700, Christopher Lane wrote:
> > Some version of the PD text can remain in place but I can clarify that
> > it's my/our belief about these files and does not negate the fact that
> > we're licensing the whole project, including these files as part of
> > it, under the MIT license. Assuming we get a suitable response for #3
> > above, I can also add the text that the following contributors
> > (listed) all grant the attribution exception for these files. And for
> > future port contributors I can ask them to do the same at the time of
> > contribution.
> >
> > Is this acceptable? If it sounds like it may be but there are
> > questions about the specific language I can prepare a proposed diff
> > for the COPYRIGHT file for review.
> >
> 
> So yeah, this is a good idea.  Please send the diff and I'll get their
> comments on the specific language.

Please let me know what you (or your lawyers) think of the attached
diff. As an extra bonus I made an effort to avoid the actual words
"Public Domain" since they apparently scare people off. Does this
work? Does anyone from the community (esp. any of the contributors I'd
be asking to agree) have objections to it?

Rich

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diff --git a/COPYRIGHT b/COPYRIGHT
index 1b20b23..a60c174 100644
--- a/COPYRIGHT
+++ b/COPYRIGHT
@@ -140,15 +140,24 @@ can be found in the git version control history of the project. The
 omission of copyright and license comments in each file is in the
 interest of source tree size.
 
-All public header files (include/* and arch/*/bits/*) should be
-treated as Public Domain as they intentionally contain no content
-which can be covered by copyright. Some source modules may fall in
-this category as well. If you believe that a file is so trivial that
-it should be in the Public Domain, please contact the authors and
-request an explicit statement releasing it from copyright.
-
-The following files are trivial, believed not to be copyrightable in
-the first place, and hereby explicitly released to the Public Domain:
-
-All public headers: include/*, arch/*/bits/*
-Startup files: crt/*
+In addition, permission is hereby granted for all public header files
+(include/* and arch/*/bits/*) and crt files intended to be linked into
+applications (crt/*, ldso/dlstart.c, and arch/*/crt_arch.h) to omit
+the copyright notice and permission notice otherwise required by the
+license, and to use these files without any requirement of
+attribution. These files include substantial contributions from:
+
+[list here]
+
+all of whom have explicitly granted such permission. It is our belief
+and intent that these files do not contain substantial creative
+content, except in dlstart.c, and that, standing on their own, they
+would not be subject to copyright anyway. This belief/intent, however,
+should in no way be interpreted as negating the above grants of
+permission.
+
+Some trivial source modules may fall in this category as well. If you
+believe that a file is so trivial that it should not be subject to
+copyright claims, please contact the authors and request an explicit
+statement that the authors agree and grant permission to use it
+without attribution.