DRAFT document on coding conventions in kde libraries

[Henry Miller]

On Friday 10 March 2006 11:01, Allen Winter wrote:

>
> Instead of a Name do we allow "the KMail Developers" or "the KAPP team"??
> My opinion is no, but I see copyright owners like that all over the place.
>
> Ideally, the <domain> is kde.org or another KDE sponsored domain.

Is "The KMail Developers", or "the KAPP team" a legally registered entity with 
the purpose (or one responsibility) of collecting copyrights from program 
authors?    If so, then such a name is legal, an may even be encouraged.   If 
not, then such a line should be banned.    

If there is such an organization, you need to send legal papers indicating 
that you are assigning copyright, not just place a notice at the start of the 
file.   If someone does not send those legal papers, but places the 
assignment on the file it isn't clear what happens.   (Maybe a lawyer would 
know, but I am not a lawyer)

The free software foundation holds all copyright for GNU software, and they 
are very careful to get everything correct.   I know of no other project that 
holds copyright in a manner strict enough that it could go to court alone.    
Most free software projects have copyrights held by each developer for their 
own parts.   If infringement happens each developer would be responsible for 
going to court separately to collect damages.  (If they care, many would not 
bother)

It would be worthwhile to have some organization (Isn't there already a KDE 
foundation) that can hold copyrights for anyone who doesn't want to 
themselves.   Some companies prefer to do things this way (they may get a tax 
write off for donating code).