chore: assign copyright to Schneewolf Labs LLC - #630
Merged
Conversation
Hemlock is no longer a personal project. It is load-bearing infrastructure for products the Lab ships -- Wobbleweed and the game built on it -- and recent compiler work (the inliner param-name collision, ptr == null parity, the array.sort merge sort, the interpreter/compiler divergence audit) was driven by those products' requirements. Aligning the copyright with the entity that maintains it: - keeps the chain consistent for anyone evaluating the stack (Hemlock MIT -> Wobbleweed MIT -> products) - puts MIT's warranty disclaimer behind the LLC rather than an individual - means outside contributions land against the entity that depends on the code License is unchanged: MIT, verbatim. Nothing about how anyone may use Hemlock changes. Note for later: while Schneewolf Labs is the sole copyright holder it can relicense or grant exceptions freely. That ends with the first merged outside contribution. If preserving that option matters, adopt a CLA or DCO before accepting one.
This file contains hidden or bidirectional Unicode text that may be interpreted or compiled differently than what appears below. To review, open the file in an editor that reveals hidden Unicode characters.
Learn more about bidirectional Unicode characters
Sign up for free
to join this conversation on GitHub.
Already have an account?
Sign in to comment
1 participant
Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.This suggestion is invalid because no changes were made to the code.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is closed.Suggestions cannot be applied while viewing a subset of changes.Only one suggestion per line can be applied in a batch.Add this suggestion to a batch that can be applied as a single commit.Applying suggestions on deleted lines is not supported.You must change the existing code in this line in order to create a valid suggestion.Outdated suggestions cannot be applied.This suggestion has been applied or marked resolved.Suggestions cannot be applied from pending reviews.Suggestions cannot be applied on multi-line comments.Suggestions cannot be applied while the pull request is queued to merge.Suggestion cannot be applied right now. Please check back later.
Hemlock's copyright moves from an individual to the entity that now maintains it. The license itself is unchanged — MIT, verbatim. Nothing about how anyone may use Hemlock changes.
Why
Hemlock stopped being a personal project when it became load-bearing infrastructure for products the Lab ships. In the last stretch alone, four compiler/runtime fixes landed because a Schneewolf product needed them:
ptr == nullbeing false for an FFI NULL in compiled code (Implement pointer-to-null comparison semantics #628)array.sortquadratic on already-sorted input (Replace quicksort with stable merge sort in array.sort() #629)That's a language being maintained against production requirements, not a hobby project.
What this buys
Changes
LICENSE— copyright line onlyREADME.md— names the maintainer and states why the stack is permissive: everything built on Hemlock stays free to use commercially without inheriting copyleftOne thing worth knowing
While Schneewolf Labs is the sole copyright holder it can relicense or grant exceptions freely — including linking proprietary SDKs in its own builds, with no exception needed, since the license binds redistributors rather than the holder.
That ends with the first merged outside contribution: contributors hold copyright in their work, and any future relicensing or exception then needs their agreement too. If preserving that option matters, adopt a CLA or DCO before accepting one — retrofitting requires tracking down every contributor, which is the step projects usually can't finish.
🤖 Generated with Claude Code
https://claude.ai/code/session_01TRhrCv3yJt6KoXQm2aXmgi