Redmine

John Yani wrote:

I have a little concern regarding sending patches to redmine.
Redmine distributed under GPL, so any patches sent to its codebase would also be distributed under GPL.
But there is no clear statement about under which license patches are licensed.

Patches can be considered as derived works so yes they come under the GPL.

GPL requires indicating an author. But there is no AUTHORS.txt file. Only svn author.

Do you have any pointers about this requirement?

So does it mean that when you send a patch, your rights are transferred to svn committer, namely Jean-Philippe Lang?

Indeed, I hold the copyright for Redmine, just like other projects do (eg. Rails).

Is there a plan to switch to git, as it includes original author? And it will help to calculate actual number of committers.

No plan to switch for now.

GPL requires indicating an author. But there is no AUTHORS.txt file. Only svn author.

Do you have any pointers about this requirement?

According to section 2a of the GNU GPL, every person modifying a program must clearly state what files have been modified and when.

Well, if by sending a patch I automatically transfer its authorship to you, then you don't have to indicate me as an author.
I just wanted that to be clear.

I think it's just unfair to take credit for someone's work. Even if it's just trivial fixes.
Many people contributed to Redmine, but only a dozen of them are listed as contributors http://www.ohloh.net/p/redmine/contributors?page=1

I think this is one of the reasons why chiliproject fork was created: people wanted their work to be acknowledged. And git enabled them to track every contribution: http://www.ohloh.net/p/chiliproject/contributors?page=1

If you don't want to switch to git, you should create AUTHORS file and give credits to the people, whose patches you accepted:

http://www.redmine.org/projects/redmine/issues?set_filter=1&f%5B%5D=status_id&op%5Bstatus_id%5D=c&f%5B%5D=tracker_id&op%5Btracker_id%5D=%3D&v%5Btracker_id%5D%5B%5D=3&f%5B%5D=&c%5B%5D=tracker&c%5B%5D=status&c%5B%5D=subject&c%5B%5D=updated_on&c%5B%5D=category&c%5B%5D=author&group_by=

And those who contributed via GitHub:
https://github.com/marutosi/redmine/commits/rails3-straight-20120421-bb

Otherwise you're violating GPL.
GPL doesn't mean "public domain", you can't change the license unless you're a copyright holder. And since when someone submit a patch he doesn't grant you all the rights to their code, they are still copyright holders.

John Yani wrote:

GPL requires indicating an author. But there is no AUTHORS.txt file. Only svn author.

Do you have any pointers about this requirement?

According to section 2a of the GNU GPL, every person modifying a program must clearly state what files have been modified and when.

Section 2a applies to a licensee who distributes a modified copy of Redmine. I'm fine with adding a AUTHORS.txt but it has nothing to do with that.