[Dovecot] Copyright notices in code
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
Timo Sirainen wrote:
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
It is always a good idea to spell out the copyright anyway. Besides, you can't gaurantee that no one will use one file somewhere else, before long the question of ownership and license becomes an issue if these aren't spelled out in each file.
Just my over careful 2 cents.
Trever
On 6/29/07, Trever L. Adams <trever.adams@gmail.com> wrote:
Timo Sirainen wrote:
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
It is always a good idea to spell out the copyright anyway. Besides, you can't gaurantee that no one will use one file somewhere else, before long the question of ownership and license becomes an issue if these aren't spelled out in each file.
anyway, if someone use the file somewhere else, the copyright can be edited :) Personally, I think that a up-to-date file named 'COPYRIGHT' or something like that should be sufficient. (though, I care only about nice code and good architecture and don't care about boring licence stuff...).
-- DINH Viêt Hoà
On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 17:30 +0200, DINH Viêt Hoà wrote:
On 6/29/07, Trever L. Adams <trever.adams@gmail.com> wrote:
Timo Sirainen wrote:
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
It is always a good idea to spell out the copyright anyway. Besides, you can't gaurantee that no one will use one file somewhere else, before long the question of ownership and license becomes an issue if these aren't spelled out in each file.
anyway, if someone use the file somewhere else, the copyright can be edited :) Personally, I think that a up-to-date file named 'COPYRIGHT' or something like that should be sufficient. (though, I care only about nice code and good architecture and don't care about boring licence stuff...).
One possibility would be:
/* Copyright Dovecot authors, see included AUTHORS and COPYING files */
But it's still a bit annoying to copy&paste that to all new created files. :)
On 2007 Jun 29 (Fri) at 17:30:34 +0200 (+0200), DINH Vi?t Ho? wrote:
anyway, if someone use the file somewhere else, the copyright can be edited :) Personally, I think that a up-to-date file named 'COPYRIGHT' or something like that should be sufficient. (though, I care only about nice code and good architecture and don't care about boring licence stuff...).
License stuff may be boring, but its important. Just ask the GPL3 people. Or Tivo. Or Microsoft. Or SCO. (the list goes on and on)
The OpenBSD project (which I don't talk for) has a policy of every file has copyright (and license) explicitly in the top of the file. This way it isn't ambigious.
I can understand this being boring, but accurate copyright and licensing can and will protect your code. Even if you want to make it as free as possible, you still need to declare it.
-- A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat.
I think the authors' names are sufficient.
Andrew Flannery
-----Original Message----- From: dovecot-bounces@dovecot.org [mailto:dovecot-bounces@dovecot.org] On Behalf Of Timo Sirainen Sent: 29 June 2007 10:15 To: dovecot@dovecot.org Subject: [Dovecot] Copyright notices in code
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
On Fri, Jun 29, 2007 at 05:14:39PM +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
I thought about committing this change to all .c files:
Removed all Copyright Timo Sirainen comments. They weren't always correct and the year numbers were rarely updated when something was changed. Copyright is owned by the creator by default in practically all countries, there's no need to advertise it everywhere.
Can anyone think of reasons why this wouldn't be a good idea?
The FSF highly recommends putting the whole lot of it in each file. It doesn't hurt and is the safest bet.
There are templates to use, that look like
<what this code does (one line)>
<copyright/dates/author (one to few lines)>
<license text (three paragraphs)>
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
On 6/30/07, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm@atrpms.net> wrote:
The FSF highly recommends putting the whole lot of it in each file. It doesn't hurt and is the safest bet.
There are templates to use, that look like
Easy to do with a lot of rc systems to push and maintain the proper header notice, that you mention, into the file via a hook as well as maintain a list of authors. Thus keeping the project's legal postings out of the hands of developers and ever checkout free and clear.
I believe one of the svn tools handles authors so much as to deal with merges and splits of code. So when a writemail.c is split into writembox.c and writemaildir.c the proper authors are attributed. Sort of sexy.
Gabriel Millerd
participants (7)
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Axel Thimm
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DINH Viêt Hoà
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Flannery, Andrew
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Gabriel Millerd
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Peter Hessler
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Timo Sirainen
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Trever L. Adams