This is already stated in 29-32, so this statement is redundant. We could agree on the MUST which is missing above, but please add it there

That is not the preferred way, it should be a clear statement of who the copyright owner is. Actually, this formulation is misleading, who is the contributor, typically a person, who is the owner of the ip contributed by this person, typically the employer of that person, so this change is wrong!

In the eclipse project handbook we have written that it is not the person but the company which is doing the contribution: https://www.eclipse.org/projects/handbook/#ip-copyright-headers, until now the eclipse foundation asked us to add this line SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 202x Contributors to the Eclipse Foundation in our kits.

Therefore I am investigating the real need for it, and starting a discussion if we need to enforce that.

The Handbook is pretty unclear at this point. If you read the section on what a contributor is, it is stated, that it is basically the person doing the contribution, as it is also the person, who signs the ECA, if there is no company ECA signed (last thing I added). In this case, the copyright owner and the contributor are simply not the same entity. I would suggest that we clarify this with the foundation, as I think, that part is not so clear as it could be. Still, the phrase should be the last resort like the "and others" part in the handbook section you mentioned. Let us phrase the question to the EF together, so that we get the answer we want.

Leave this example out!

I don't understand why we now need to remove the contributor to the eclipse foundation? Look at all the KITs we are including it in every single one. If we don't harmonize it there is just more confusion if we start now creating without it.

We really should not encourage using that, as it is a nice workaround but not the proper way. If, e.g., I use it, I actually am on legal uncertain ground, as I wrote. I am the contributor but the owner of the ip I contribute is owned by Cofinity-X GmbH. You could argue, that the term can be interpreted as Cofinity-X GmbH is the contributor and I am the willingless tool that executes that, but in general it is not clear and in the wrong interpretation, I violate my employees contract in stating that.

It is also awful for the maintainer of the project, because the close says nothing about the ownership. The message is, that the contributor does not care about the contributed ip and does not want to be bugged again with it. Unfortunately, there are situations, where the consent of all ip owners is needed, but if this is not expressed properly, it is very hard to find out, who the owner of the stuff is.

So, best practice is, that you should use a clear ownership declaration, like (c) 2025 Cofinity-X GmbH, because then, ownership is clear and Cofinity-X can be asked regarding legal aspects, if the need arises.

That is, why we should not encourage the usage of it by providing it in examples. It is a last resort, which I admit also use in certain situations, but it is typically in situations, where we tak about a very small amount of changes, the original author of a whole KIT view should reflect the ownership of the expressed ip by the name of the owner. Period.

In general, I would assume, that TRG 7.07 is enough, this section is redundant, I would reduce it, if you want to reference that copyright notices have to be done according to 7.07.

this is done already in another section before.

Than, this setion is superfluous, it does not add anything, not describe in 7.07 and only adds redundancy.