Re: Copyright notices

Please continue this on the appropriate list. I've set reply-to accordingly.

Parker Coates wrote:

> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 09:11, Andreas Pakulat wrote:
>> On 10.02.09 05:33:16, Frederik Schwarzer wrote:
>>> in KShisen the copyright notice in the about dialog says:
>>> (c) 1997, Mario Weilguni
>>> 1. it is a bit out-dated. :)
>>> 2. the parenthesis form of the c is not valid in many countries
>>>
>>> What's the preferred notice here?
>>> © <this_year> The KDE Team
>>> © <this_year> The KDEGames Team
>>> © <this_year> <current_maintainer>
>>> ...?
>> Valid forms of license headers (for code in KDE svn) are explained here:
>> http://techbase.kde.org/Policies/Licensing_Policy
>>
>> In particular copyrights should be of the form
>>
>> Copyright <year> <name> <email>
>
> What exactly is <year> in this case? Is it the year of the first
> contribution or the year of the most recent contribution? In Killbots
> I'm using <startyear>-<mostrecentyear>. I've seen this format used
> elsewhere, but the licensing policy makes no mention of it.

According to GNU you should not use <from>-<to> form (though, granted,
everyone does). You should list all years in which contributions were
made. (So, really, even if using ranges you should put gaps where no
contributions were made by that author.)

>> IANAL, but AFAIK things like "KDEGames Team" are not valid, it has to be a
>> real person.
>
> Then why is KDevelop "(c) 1999-2009, The KDevelop developers"?

First off, if it uses only (c) (and not "©" or "Copyright" - only one
should be used AFAIK) it's wrong.

Second, as has been said, I suspect "sloppy" copyrights like this are
accepted in about dialogs, since for actual copyright information it is
needed to look at the sources (which should have correctly-written
notices covering only that file).

IOW I think we like to have a single line in about and then list
authors. (Actually, since we /do/ list authors, this might even be okay,
i.e. saying "the team" and then in the same place stating who is part of
that team...)

--
Matthew
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--
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On Tuesday 10 February 2009 15:51:36 Matthew Woehlke wrote:
> > Then why is KDevelop "(c) 1999-2009, The KDevelop developers"?
>
> First off, if it uses only (c) (and not "©" or "Copyright" - only one
> should be used AFAIK) it's wrong.

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.

Alex


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

...the people that wrote or contributed to them, of course. I'm not sure
how you /add/ copyright notices to a .ui, though (and TBH I don't think
I've ever done it, which means .ui's I've written are probably unmarked;
shame on me :-) ).

> 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.

Writing "copyright <years> the authors" might be better. (IANAL however,
so any contrary advice from someone that knows better what they are
talking about should trump mine :-).)

> 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. :)

I suspect that's true of the About... notice. The source files should be
correct however (and should be fixed if they aren't).

--
Matthew
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Hi,

how would it be to remove the word (or any sign for) "Copyright" from the
About dialog?
I.e. replace "(c) 1997, John Doe" with just "1997-2009 The KDEGames Team" in
every game. The Authors tab holds the specifics anyway.

MfG
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On Saturday 14 February 2009, Frederik Schwarzer wrote:
> Hi,
>
> how would it be to remove the word (or any sign for) "Copyright" from
> the About dialog?

Why? A copyright notice requires either the word "Copyright" or the
copyright symbol ©.

> I.e. replace "(c) 1997, John Doe" with just "1997-2009 The KDEGames
> Team" in every game. The Authors tab holds the specifics anyway.

If you want to do this then I'd write

  Copyright 1997-2009 The authors of <name of application> (see Authors)

Clicking on Authors should open the Authors tab.

Then again, such a copyright notice might not be valid (e.g. because not
all authors contributed all of the time).

Ideally, the copyright notices shown in the About dialog would be
compiled automatically from the copyright notices of all source files,
e.g. through a script similar to scripty. This would be the most
correct and, at the same time, easiest way. The list of authors could
be compiled similarly.


Regards,
Ingo


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On Wednesday 11 February 2009, Frederik Schwarzer wrote:
> What about the KDE e.V. It is a legal entity. It can hold copyrights,
> right?

yes, KDE e.V. can hold copyrights.

> 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?).

that's up to the contributor's to decide, but we have the FLA in place
specifically for those who wish to do this.

--
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
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On Tuesday 21 April 2009 07:32:27 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:

> (AUTHORS files are pretty dubious; they need to be more than an amorphous list
> of names: they need to indicate who worked on what and when; just stick with
> in-file attribution for any non-trivial contribution)

Ok, that part is pretty clear now. But what about the About dialog?
Everybody seems to know what is NOT sufficient, but nobody said what
information we can write there?

One suggestion I like best was to drop the copyright notice there and
replace it with something like "use the source, luke".

That's a decision too big for kde-games-devel, though.

Many people might not care about issues that seem unimportant enough
to be safely ignored for years. But I feel strange with leaving a 1997
copyright notice there and cannot just change it to what comes to my
mind first.

Regards

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