Sylvain Beucler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> tapota : > Hi, > > On Thu, Jan 13, 2005 at 10:00:32AM +0100, Mathieu Roy wrote: >> Hello, >> >> I noticed in lib/Savannah/User.pm the following >> >> # Copyright 2003-2004 (c) Mathieu Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> # Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. >> >> First, unless a copyright get assigned to the FSF formally (filled out >> papers), it is completely illegal. > > I refered to the code from the FSF sysadmins, who explicitely told me > that the code they write is copyrighted by the FSF and released under > the GNU GPL.
Ok, that's normal because they are employed by the FSF USA. > > > I don't think I added code that I produced myself in this file in > particular; however, maybe I forgot to add my copyright notice in some > files. Well, from the Savane point of view, you are the one that made public this code, so indeed you have a part in it. Also, from what I understand, you had to modify the code they produce to make it work. But you are correct, if there's non trivial work they made, the FSF USA should be added to the copyright holders lists. >> Secondly, it is best to get consistent with the way things are written >> (in extenso, it is ugly to have lines with the (c) not at the same >> place). > > In this case, it would be good to use the layout described at: > http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html > This is the method recommended for GNU Packages. Savane is not a GNU package, so there is no obligation to follow this recommendations. Since both way provide all the useful information, the easier solution is to keep the current one, and to stay consistent with it. > >> Thirdly, when you write a new copyright line, it looks like at some >> point it is a new list that begins. > > Not sure; it the year differs for each copyright holder, then we can't > factorize them. As long they are not connected. 2002-2005 bla bla blo blo would means that "bla bla" and "blo blo" made changes on this code from 2002-2005, without too much distinction (one can use cvs to know who did what exactly. If you add 2002-2003 bla bla 2003-2004 blo the two looks unconnected. >From now, copyright has been written in such way, I do not think it is important and desirable to change that. But if it is (we would have to agree on that first), we should change this everywhere at the same time. In this kind of matter, consistency is not secondary. >> I know in the past some "Copyright (C) Free Software Foundation, >> Inc." were added in numerous places... by mistake. It had no legal >> ground, and should have been removed everywhere. > > Well, in this case, it was justified :) > >> The corrected version would be >> >> # Copyright 2003-2004 (c) Mathieu Roy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> # YourNAME <youraddress> > > As far as I'm concerned, I would use: > > # Copyright (C) 2003, 2004, 2005 Mathieu Roy > # Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc. > # Copyright (C) 2004, 2005 Sylvain Beucler > That's a way to do things (I never received any answer saying why 2003, 2004, 2005 would be more valid than 2003-2005 - and it is not like there was something serious at stakes about that). But that's not the way it was done until now and frankly, it's ugly... so that's not a very appealing change. > Usually I add personal information such as e-mail addresses below in >the file. Matter of taste I guess. >Using spaces/tabs to align the name is not good in the long run, when >you get a *big* list of years such as glibc's. Why not? >> If you do have filled out forms of FSF USA copyright assignement, >> please mention it in the AUTHORS file, and when you do add your >> copyright, do so so it appears in the list of the current version >> developers. >> When there are several "copyright" in the code, it highlight the >> status of the code when the software was called sourceforge >> (alexandria) and then savannah. > > I'll check my changes to see who did what. > Good. Best Regards, -- Mathieu Roy +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | General Homepage: http://yeupou.coleumes.org/ | | Computing Homepage: http://alberich.coleumes.org/ | | Not a native english speaker: | | http://stock.coleumes.org/doc.php?i=/misc-files/flawed-english | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ _______________________________________________ Savane-dev mailing list [email protected] https://mail.gna.org/listinfo/savane-dev
