Copyright Notices

Shane Martin Coughlan coughlan at fsfeurope.org
Mon Feb 2 21:57:49 CET 2009


Hi Gary

Gary Steinert 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/>.  *
> ***************************************************************************/

That looks to be in line with FSF recommendations:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-howto.html

Licence clarity is a good idea, and I think it makes sense to ensure that the
project files have a uniform notice.

> 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?

If the files give explicit permission to re-licence (as opposed to simply
redistribute) under the GPL, then your suggest action might be workable.   If
not, then it depends if you own the copyright on the files.  If you don't own
the copyright, then you can't change the licence without explicit permission.

IANAL.

Regards

Shane

-- 
Shane Coughlan
FTF Coordinator
Free Software Foundation Europe
Office: +41435000366 ext 408 / Mobile: +353858303486
coughlan at fsfeurope.org
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