19 Sep
2013
19 Sep
'13
11:46 p.m.
On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 2:05 PM, Fons Adriaensen <fons(a)linuxaudio.org> wrote:
There is world of difference (also legally) between
"Copyright (c) xxxxxx'
and
"Additional code/modifications by xxxxx"
On Sep 19, 2013, at 17:22 03, J. Liles wrote:
Fons, I've been around the free-software block a
time or two and I have to say I have never *once* encountered the latter form of notation.
Adding a Copyright (c) line with dates is the standard practice, but (obviously?) only to
files that have actually been altered significantly. Anyone interested (even those weasely
lawyers) can run a diff against the two codebases to see what was actually changed.
FWIW, I have come across both notations in the wild, and have even done (been guilty of?)
both practices myself. Personally, I would certainly never add a copyright notice to a
file to which I had made no substantive change, but I have done so on files to which I
have made significant modifications (being careful to preserve the original attributions
and copyright notice(s) in the process).
So it would seem that this may be a gray area. My own inclination therefore would be to
cut the "offenders" some slack. We were all new at this at one point or another
-- it'd be a shame to see one's work closed down over something like this.
Cheers!
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| Frederick F. Gleason, Jr. | Chief Developer |
| | Paravel Systems |
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