Update license guidance, tooling & templates

[tallclair]

See discussion on https://groups.google.com/a/kubernetes.io/g/steering/c/R8rDqQ4dcnU

From Daniel Krook:

Their guidance is not to modify existing copyright lines in existing files, but to start using the new line for all new file contributions.

This is because attribution notices shouldn't be removed or replaced, rather just added to, without a very specific and legal reviewed reason.

That would mean all the template repos used for new efforts within the Kubernetes GitHub org should use a new "Copyright © contributors to Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC." line.

Automation scripts (generators and verifiers) should be updated to look for the existing format or the new one: "Copyright © contributors to Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC."

For the kubernetes.io website footer, it should be updated to read:

Copyright © Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC
For website terms of use, trademark policy and other project policies please see lfprojects.org/policies/.

Documentation Distributed under CC BY 4.0.

ICP license: 京ICP备17074266号-3

[krook]

Thanks Tim,

There is a simpler and consistent variant that can be used which drops the year for all new code. Older lines shouldn't be modified.

Copyright The Kubernetes Authors.

For the website footer, the current line that references the LF can be replaced with this.

Copyright Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC
For website terms of use, trademark policy and other project policies please see lfprojects.org/policies/.

The "Copyright" word is redundant with the "©" symbol so you can use either or. Using the word instead of the symbol would make it consistent with what's used in the code.

[BenTheElder]

If I understand correctly this is a longer-term cleanup / clarification, not something immediate pressing, right?

---

For websites:

Is the ICP license bit only for kubernetes.io? (I assume so and that is currently the case), we have a few websites that currently have very different footers ...

• https://github.com/kubernetes/website
• https://github.com/kubernetes/contributor-site
• https://github.com/etcd-io/website
• A handful of subproject websites (*.sigs.k8s.io), we can find which sites exist via https://github.com/kubernetes/k8s.io/tree/main/dns, eg https://kueue.sigs.k8s.io/

For the source code copyright, we haven't had to coordinate a change like this before, but we can start with:

That would mean all the template repos used for new efforts within the Kubernetes GitHub org should use a new "Copyright © contributors to Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC." line.

• https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes-template-project

[krook]

If I understand correctly this is a longer-term cleanup / clarification, not something immediate pressing, right?

Correct, and since Kubernetes can just use the shorter version, Copyright The Kubernetes Authors., it shouldn't be that different. It just drops the year from the existing convention.

For the websites, anywhere you have this:

© The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our Trademark Usage page.

You would replace that with this:

Copyright Kubernetes a Series of LF Projects, LLC
For website terms of use, trademark policy and other project policies please see lfprojects.org/policies/.

[tallclair]

Correct, and since Kubernetes can just use the shorter version, Copyright The Kubernetes Authors., it shouldn't be that different. It just drops the year from the existing convention.

To clarify, do we still need the rest of the license in the header, or just that single line? In other words, can we drop all the apache license boilerplate?

+ // Copyright The Kubernetes Authors.
- /*
- Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.
- 
- Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
- you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
- You may obtain a copy of the License at
- 
-     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
- 
- Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
- distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
- WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
- See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
- limitations under the License.
- */

Or are you saying just to drop the year, and keep the rest of the header?

[krook]

@tallclair just drop the YEAR from Copyright YEAR The Kubernetes Authors.

Keep the Apache boilerplate.

[tallclair]

Kubernetes PR: kubernetes/kubernetes#134835

[BenTheElder]

https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes-template-project

This template doesn't presume the repo will have code, I don't think there's anything to update there.