Copyright Notices

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Monday 02 February 2009, Alex Merry wrote:
> On Monday 02 February 2009 19:30:26 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)
>
> If the file is already under "GPL v2 or later", or "LGPL v2 or
> later", you can change the header to match this.
>
> If it is GPL 2-only, you CANNOT do this without consent from every
> person who has a copyright claim on the file.  I believe that if it
> is LGPL v2(.1) (without the "or later"), you can change it (I think
> it is inherent in the LGPL license that you can switch to a later
> version), but I am not certain on that point.
>
> If it is BSD, MIT or X11 licensed, you can put the header in, but you
> probably need to copy the revelant license underneath with the text
> "parts of this file are licensed under the $LICENSE license:"
>
> CCing kde-licensing for more input.  And because it's a good place to
> discuss this sort of stuff.

I have only one thing to add: Whatever you do please omit the 
nonsensical (C) in the copyright header.

Quoting from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html :

  Whichever license you plan to use, the process involves adding two
  elements to each source file of your program: a copyright notice (such
  as “Copyright 1999 Terry Jones”), and a statement of copying
  permission, saying that the program is distributed under the terms of
  the GNU General Public License (or the Lesser GPL).

  The copyright notice should include the year in which you finished
  preparing the release (so if you finished it in 1998 but didn't post
  it until 1999, use 1998). You should add the proper year for each
  release; for example, “Copyright 1998, 1999 Terry Jones” if some
  versions were finished in 1998 and some were finished in 1999. If
  several people helped write the code, use all their names.

  For software with several releases over multiple years, it is best to
  spell out each year, in full, without using ranges or abbreviations,
  as in the example above.

  Always use the English word “Copyright”; by international convention,
  this is used worldwide, even for material in other languages. The
  copyright symbol “©” can be included if you wish (and your character
  set supports it), but it's not necessary. There is no legal
  significance to using the three-character sequence “(C)”, although it
  does no harm.


Also see the example GPL header on TechBase:
  http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy#GPL_Header


Regards,
Ingo


> > /******************************************************************
> >******** *   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/>.
> > *******************************************************************
> >********/
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