Remove old copyright mentions from 2013

[jbbarth]

@oleiade @ggreg many files in the lib have the following header:

# Copyright (c) 2013, Theo Crevon 
# Copyright (c) 2013, Greg Leclercq 
# 
# See the file LICENSE for copying permission.

Similarly the main LICENSE file in the repo mentions:

Copyright 2014 Greg Leclercq

Do you mind if we remove those mentions and change the copyright to "Botify" instead?

[ewjoachim]

I believe the good practice is to retain copyright, and optionally add new lines. (Also, the year listed here should be the first year the copyright holder started working on this, which likely is the case here, but Botify was probably the same year, I guess)

There probably are fine prints in our work contracts saying that IP belongs to the company. That said, I believe that in open source works, and especially when it's not software that is part of the company's business model, it's quite fair to state author names, and I don't see a compelling reason to remove it, even if all the code that had be written by the original authors had been gradually replaced (that's a modern Theseus ship philosophical thought experiment we have here).

So even if the authors don't mind, as much as I can say, I do mind (well, except if the authors would rather have their names removed, of course).

Of course, I'm talking about retaining the Author's names in the project, but this can be done solely in the LICENCE file, I can't think of a specific reason to require having it in each and every file.

Of course, given that Botify is the de-facto maintainer of the lib today (and/or we could say @ybastide is), and there's absolutely no reason not to put that too in the LICENCE file too.

So:

• Removing copyright from file headers: cool as long as each name we remove is present in the LICENCE file: cool
• Removing names from the LICENCE file: not cool
• Adding @ybastide as an author: very cool
• Adding Botify as an author: cool

[ewjoachim]

BTW, you have claims for being listed as an author too :)

[oleiade]

Hey @jbbarth 👋🏻

My main concern here is to understand the motivation behind it, why it's needed, and if it is a direct issue that keeps either your team or Botify from moving forward with the project. I somewhat align with all the points raised by @ewjoachim.

Also, I really appreciate that you would ask and check with us, so cheers for that 🙇🏻

[ybastide]

So let's

• update the LICENSE file (or AUTHORS?) with the listed authors and Botify
• remove the copyright notice from the files' header
• update __init__.py and pyproject.toml

? Depending on @ggreg's opinion 🙂

[ggreg]

Thanks @jbbarth for asking @oleiade and myself. I appreciate the thoughtful approach and that @jbbarth, @ewjoachim, and @ybastide took the time to make a balanced decision.

@ybastide sounds like a good plan. Please keep @oleiade and myself (@ggreg) authorship. We both deserve credit for the original work and the inception of the project. Now @jbbarth @ybastide and other contributors deserve credit for all the work you've done to get the project where it is now.

Thanks also to Botify and its founders for supporting open source work. Happy to know that the project is still alive 10 years after! 😄

Let's add @oleiade and myself as reviewers of the changes. That will be a concrete way to sign off and materialize the decision we made in this GH issue.

[ybastide]

botify-labs's admin is on vacation this week, so we can't add the “Reviewers” field right now; the final cut will be yours next week 🙂 Thanks! (Edit: I had issue and PR pages mixed up, of course PRs have reviewers 🙃)