Re: libpng license 2.0

On 9/6/18 9:29 AM, Marcus Johnson wrote:
> >Relicensing without explicit approval of all copyright holders is not
> possible in general. It is possible only in a few exceptional cases.
> For example:
> * From GPLv2 to GPLv3 and from LGPLv2.1 to LGPLv3
> * From LGPLv2.1 to GPLv2 and from LGPLv3 to GPLv3
> * From 2-clause BSD to 3-clause BSD
> * From EUPL to GPL/LGPL/MPL/EPL/CPL/CeCILL
>
> And not much else.
>
> I understand this is a problem, LLVM is currently going through this 
> issue, but I think it's worth at least considering it instead of just 
> dismissing it as infeasible off hand.
>
> Does anyone have any clue how many contributors there have been to libPNG?
>
> Ok, I cloned the git repo and ran `git shortlog --summary --numbered`
>
> There are only 5 contributors throughout the history of the libpng repo
>
> Here they are:
>
> Andreas Dilger
> Glenn Randers-Pehrson
> Guy Schalnat
> John Bowler
> Mans Rullgard
>
> Andreas Dilger has contributed 2089 commits, followed by John Bowler 
> with 109, after that it's in the single digits commit count wise.
>
Please be cautious using commits to decide who is an author. Lack of 
evidence for is not evidence against.  Does this repo actually go back 
to the very beginnings of libpng?  Was there a previous repo (cvs, svn, 
...) where not all history was migrated to git?  Is it possible there 
was a code review process where the actual author was not the one to 
actually do the git commit?  (I believe git can distinguish committer 
from author, although it isn't often used.)  Are there messages in the 
mailing list archives that indicate early authorship?  I don't know 
anything about the history of libpng, but I point this out because I 
just went through a similar process on a different project.

Jack

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