DRAFT document on coding conventions in kde libraries

[Lauri Watts]

On Monday 06 March 2006 12:41, Nicolas Goutte wrote:
> On Sunday 05 March 2006 22:53, Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> > Am Sonntag, 5. März 2006 18:38, schrieb Olivier Goffart:
>

> > Are pointers sufficient like "See File xy for authors, copyright and
> > licence" or should there be a complete documentation of all authors
> > and the
> > licence (although they might be fetchable from the repository system)?
>
> Basic copyright and license information *must* be in the same file or some
> "attacker" could (pseudo-)naively tell: "I did not know".

This is a myth actually, albeit a widespread one.  Copyright is not license, 
and "I did not know" is no defence at all if it comes to the law.  Unless 
something specifically says it's public domain, or it has come into the 
public domain by virtue of being older than the prescribed number of years 
(and we're quite many years from any parts of KDE hitting that limit) , it is 
_always_ copyright someone, even if we don't always know who that someone is 
or how to reach them.

> > And what sense
> > make the notion of the year span at all, when to update?
>
> Year spans (e.g. 1996-2004) are problematic, as far as I have understood,
> and listing each year has to be prefered.

The years are "year of first publication".  Each change, when distributed, 
therefore should be added (because newly added code is being 'published' for 
the first time.)

So, you list each year a change was made, and may abbreviate that to a span if 
multiple consecutive years are included. 

e.g. File was change din 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006 (unlikely, but possible)
You could put "2000-2002,2006"

Most important of all, is to realise that just _creating the file_ grants you 
copyright (this is called 'The principle of "automatic " protection').  The 
copyright notice may in some jurisdictions grant you _additional rights_ and 
help you claim damages, but not having it does not mean you forfeit your 
right of authorship.
That said, since the notice may grant you additional protection, it's 
important to do it properly.  Specifically, beware that (c) (that is a c, in 
either case, inside parentheses) means nothing; either write "Copyright" out 
in full and/or (preferably and) use a real copyright symbol ©

So the format is simply this:

© Copyright 2000-2002,2006 Your Name(s)

> The internation conventions on copyrights, the local copyright
> laws/systems... i.e. the same mess as with trademarks.

It's not quite that bad :)  There are really only three cases to worry about:  
the ones that follow the Berne convention[1], the US[2] which is nearly but 
not quite precisely the same (and the US is in fact a party to the Berne 
Convention too, they just have some additional stuff mostly to deal with 
punitive damages - hence my warning about (c) vs © above), and then there are 
the  places that ignore copyrights entirely, and there's not much we can do 
about them.  

There are some excellent FAQ's around, google up Brad Templeton's FAQ if 
you're interested.

[1] List is here, : 
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=15
The summarised version of the convention itself, if anyone is that interested, 
is here:
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/summary_berne.html
[2]http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html#notice

Regards,
-- 
Lauri Watts
KDE Documentation: http://docs.kde.org
KDE on FreeBSD: http://freebsd.kde.org
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