Re: [PATCH v3] MIPSr6/math: Use builtin fma and fmaf

[Adhemerval Zanella Netto <adhemerval.zanella@linaro.org>]

On 09/06/24 03:43, YunQiang Su wrote:
> Maciej W. Rozycki <macro@orcam.me.uk> 于2024年6月8日周六 22:17写道：
>>
>> On Wed, 5 Jun 2024, YunQiang Su wrote:
>>
>>>>  Doesn't this need a copyright notice?
>>>>
>>>
>>> There is no copyright notice in any math-use-builtins-*.h.
>>
>>  Existing files do not matter, it's the current interpretation of rules
>> that does.  Correcting preexisting issues incurs effort someone has to
>> undertake, so they may well stay around for a while; there are many of
>> them.  New submissions need to be correct in all cases though.
>>
>>> I guess that we treat them as so straight forward, thus no copyright
>>> notice is needed.
>>
>>  And who decides that a piece of code is "straightforward"?  We currently
>> have these rules written down:
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 4. Creating files
>>
>>    * Don't create empty files
>>    * Find new versions of the copyright headers to use as a template.
>>    * Make sure the top line is descriptive.
>>    * "Contributed by" statements are no longer used.
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> I'd argue that iff a file consists solely of a #include_next directive, it
>> might possibly skip the copyright header (though I think it would best be
>> consulted by a lawyer anyway).  Otherwise if you argue that a piece of
>> code is "straightforward" (i.e. legally insignificant, I suppose), then we
>> need to draw a line somewhere.  We currently have it stated that:
>>
>> "Copyright assignment for commulative [sic!] changes by any one author of
>> less than 15 lines do not require copyright assignment."
>>
> 
> I don't think that the line count is the most important: some code is
> quite short
> while its logic is quite complex.
> 
> For this patch, I don't think that it has logic at all. It is just a
> statement about the
> FMA support of MIPS ISA documents.
> I mean I doubt whether it can be protected by copyright.
> 
>> so by extension you could argue that your submission only has 13 lines and
>> therefore *by itself* is not legally significant.  Then if someone changes
>> the file in the future so that it has at least 2 lines more, then it will
>> be their responsibility to add the copyright notice header at that time.
>> But it could be easy to miss.  And then should we remove the header again
>> if the file has shrunk with a later update?
>>
> 
> Personally, I don't think/wish a short and *non-logic* code can be protected
> by copyright, as anybody who may do something for it will write the
> almost same code.
> I don't think that their work is a copy paste.

I agree that for this specific case, no math-use-builtins-*.h file have the
Copyright headers and require it for this patch does not seem productive.  Maybe
a better approach would to send a subsequent patch to add the missing headers.