Re: [LAD] students and copyright

On Sunday 02 August 2009 07:56:41 Arnout Engelen wrote: Right. The thing is I already have this (GPL) code that was distributed for the program's earlier version with all these other people's names in the copyright part. Then with the next version their names are all gone. The GPL indicates that all copyrights must remain intact. Unless those people transferred their copyrights, in a bilateral agreement of some sort, then something seems to be incorrect. Maybe those people did sign some kind of document, enter into some type of agreement that does hand over the copyrights. I do not know, but it would be helpful to have some evidence of this, sample of document indicating the case, or hear from a few of the people involved that are named in the copyrights. The point of this would be to future-proof the code against violations by settling these issues sooner than later. At present the documentation included with the program does not specify anything about the situation relating listed authors to copyrights. I think you can understand how it might seem that something is amiss given different sets of source files for different versions with altogether different copyrights then. A little more details showing what the actual case is can prevent the issue from arising again in the future. Possibly provide some explanation in a readme file or help that is distributed with the application. Just note that since the older source code has already been distributed, with those other copyrights in place, it can continue to be distributed with them intact and be modified and distributed in accord with the GPL, as long as everything is legitimate. Some more substance to the clarification on this point would be significantly more helpful. Not only to users/developers, but to the original project to ensure it can avoid future issues and questions surrounding points like this. Raymond