ScanCode 32.0.8 tampers with the casing of the Copyright symbol

[sschuberth]

Description

In a file that has

Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/>

ScanCode reports

Copyright (c) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/>

Note the (C) vs (c) casing.

How To Reproduce

Run

./scancode --copyright --json-pp - ~/Downloads/LICENSE

on https://github.com/grafana/grafana/blob/71b98163e52306c5da36b243bd74e74f634920a0/LICENSE

System configuration

• What OS are you running on? Linux
• What version of scancode-toolkit was used to generate the scan file? 32.0.8
• What installation method was used to install/run scancode? source download

Here's the full JSON for reference:

{
  "headers": [
    {
      "tool_name": "scancode-toolkit",
      "tool_version": "v32.0.8",
      "options": {
        "input": [
          "/home/sebastian/Downloads/LICENSE"
        ],
        "--copyright": true,
        "--json-pp": "-"
      },
      "notice": "Generated with ScanCode and provided on an \"AS IS\" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES\nOR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. No content created from\nScanCode should be considered or used as legal advice. Consult an Attorney\nfor any legal advice.\nScanCode is a free software code scanning tool from nexB Inc. and others.\nVisit https://github.com/nexB/scancode-toolkit/ for support and download.",
      "start_timestamp": "2024-01-10T124136.364189",
      "end_timestamp": "2024-01-10T124137.516281",
      "output_format_version": "3.0.0",
      "duration": 1.152099847793579,
      "message": null,
      "errors": [],
      "warnings": [],
      "extra_data": {
        "system_environment": {
          "operating_system": "linux",
          "cpu_architecture": "64",
          "platform": "Linux-6.6.9-200.fc39.x86_64-x86_64-with-glibc2.38",
          "platform_version": "#1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Mon Jan  1 20:05:54 UTC 2024",
          "python_version": "3.11.7 (main, Dec 18 2023, 00:00:00) [GCC 13.2.1 20231205 (Red Hat 13.2.1-6)]"
        },
        "spdx_license_list_version": "3.21",
        "files_count": 1
      }
    }
  ],
  "files": [
    {
      "path": "LICENSE",
      "type": "file",
      "copyrights": [
        {
          "copyright": "Copyright (c) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <https://fsf.org/>",
          "start_line": 4,
          "end_line": 4
        }
      ],
      "holders": [
        {
          "holder": "Free Software Foundation, Inc.",
          "start_line": 4,
          "end_line": 4
        }
      ],
      "authors": [],
      "scan_errors": []
    }
  ]
}

[pombredanne]

@sschuberth The copyrights are parsed with a grammar using https://github.com/nexB/pygmars/ and then its parsed parts are "unparsed" when detected.

This output includes a normalization of the various copyright "signs" be they characters, (c) or (C) and © and Copr. together with a few variants are normalized and uniform (c) representation.

This is not a bug, but a design and construction choice. This is not tampering but normalization.

You are welcome to provide a different implementation, but this would likely require a major overhaul and I cannot fathom what would be the benefits of this. Can you elaborate on why did you report this as a bug?

[sschuberth]

Can you elaborate on why did you report this as a bug?

It was reported to ORT Slack as a bug by @vw-anton who's "expectation would be that data is unchanged".

I can confirm that in my experience some lawyers are extremely sensitive in this regard, and only accept 100% original Copyright strings. The topic reminds me a bit of the similar issue of German Umlauts being converted (like "ö" ➡️ "oe").

[pombredanne]

I can confirm that in my experience some lawyers are extremely sensitive in this regard, and only accept 100% original Copyright strings.

@sschuberth @vw-anton Please send such a lawyer my way at pom at nexb.com. They will likely change their mind when confronted with the costs and efforts to implement such an enhancement.