Copyright Notices

[Bart Cerneels]

On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Gary Steinert <gary.steinert at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have noticed many inconsistencies in the copyright and license notices at
> the top of each source file. I think that as a project, we should have a
> standardised header for each source file, partly so that people do not get
> confused by the licenses applied to our source code, and also simply for
> visual consistency.
> I am willing to put in the time to change the headers, but I'm not entirely
> sure about the legality of changing the wording of some of the headers.
> As far as I can tell, the header needs only to state the license used, as well
> as the copyright holders, but I may be wrong.
> The header I propose for every file in the project is as follows:
> (best viewed in single spaced font =P)
>
> /***************************************************************************
> *   This file is part of Amarok                                            *
> *   Copyright (C) 2009 Gary Steinert <gary.steinert at gmail.com>
> *
> *                                                                          *
> *   Amarok is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify         *
> *   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by   *
> *   the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 of the License, or      *
> *   (at your option) any later version.                                    *
> *                                                                          *
> *   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,        *
> *   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of         *
> *   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the          *
> *   GNU General Public License for more details.                           *
> *                                                                          *
> *   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License      *
> *   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.  *
> ***************************************************************************/
>
> Another point, as part of standardising the headers, should we start using the
> GPLv3? Additionally, some of the files use the Mozilla MPL but give the option
> of using solely the GPL. Should we remove the MPL or leave anyone to use the
> code the option of distributing under that license?
>
> Some random question I know. But I'm no copyright expert. I'm hoping someone
> could shed some light on the best way forward.
>
> Gary Steinert
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>

Can I suggest to also create a kate template for h and cpp files. I
mostly just copy the header from some other file, try to be consistent
but can't promise my files actually are. A template would make that
soooo easy.

At to GPLv3: fine by me. We can even consider a Fiduciary license
agreement like KDE e.V. did. More info about what a FLA is:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/fla.html
First step for that is consistent headers though, gathering a list of
contributers to contact in case we decide to change the license.

Bart