[Kde-games-devel] Copyright notices

[Frederik Schwarzer]

On Tuesday 10 February 2009 19:51:14 Alex Merry wrote:

Hi,

> Please only use the full word "copyright", and not "(c)" or "©". 
> "Copyright" is an internationally-recognised word, and the other markings
> are pointless. "(c)", in particular, is meaningless.
>
> Also, copyright listings at the tops of files need to list the copyright
> holders.  Most of the time in KDE, that is the individual coders.  The only
> exception is where work is done contracted for a legal entity (such as
> Nokia employees writing code for Qt) or is explitly transferred to a legal
> entity (such as people signing copyright for work on particular projects
> across to FSF, for example).
>
> "The KDE Team" or "The KDEGames Team" cannot hold copyrights, since they
> are not legal entities.
>
> What you put in about boxes is less important, since the copyright is
> generally not that important unless you are copying/relicensing source
> code, in which case you should look at the copyright headers for the files.
>
> Also, note that you hold the copyright on the code you write (unless you
> transfer it or write the code under contract) regardless of whether or not
> you put the copyright header in the file.  The headers are informative, so
> that people know (a) when the copyright expires and (b) who to contact
> about relicensing the code.

So,

"Copyright <year> <name> <email>"
in source files (who holds the copyright on ui and XML files?)

And for the about box it does not mean anything important, so state what you 
think looks nice?

Having the source files say that John Doe holds the copyright then putting 
"The KDEGames team" in the about dialog is just a lie, isn't it?
Stating something like "Several people" with a note that one should look at 
the code would be less beautiful but more accurate.

What about the KDE e.V. It is a legal entity. It can hold copyrights, right?
I mean, it would still be a lie, if the developers did not transfer their 
copyright to it, but at least it would not be meaningless (or would that be a 
bad thing, here?).

Ok, maybe I'm kind of hair-splitting here, but I heard several times now that 
the copyright notice in many KDE programmes are meaningless, so I really would 
like to know. :)

Regards