1-byte docs commit? Not without a CLA

Re:1-byte docs commit? Not without a CLA by markbao on Thursday July 21, 2016 @07:05PM (#12140662)

It's ridiculous on the face of it, but at what point do you need to have a CLA signed? 10 bytes? Having an arbitrary cutoff for what needs a CLA or doesn't, I think, is probably even worse than having a CLA.

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Re:1-byte docs commit? Not without a CLA by __david__ on Thursday July 21, 2016 @07:08PM (#12140681)

GNU Emacs says this[1]:

  We can accept small changes (roughly, fewer than 15 lines) without
  an assignment.  This is a cumulative limit (e.g. three separate 5 line
  patches) over all your contributions.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/CONTRIBUTE (in the Copyright Assignment section)

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Re:1-byte docs commit? Not without a CLA by ars on Thursday July 21, 2016 @07:16PM (#12140713)

That byte is not copyrightable, it's as simple as that.

It follows the rules on what is copyrightable.

So mechanical changes (for example reformatting text), that involve no creativity are not copyrightable and IMO would not need a CLA even if they were very extensive.

On the other hand a single line with complicated and creative code would.

Like all things human it's subjective, there is no bright line but courts have definitely dealt with this issue (often in the context of plagiarism of musical passages).

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