Re: [gcmd-dev] Licensing

[Piotr Eljasiak]

> Why is it, that Marcus & Piotr are copyrighted...
> 
> ----------------------
>      Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Marcus Bjurman
>      Copyright (C) 2007-2010 Piotr Eljasiak
> ----------------------
> 
> but the soft is GLP-v2 ?
> 
> ----------------------
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> ...
> Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
> ----------------------

This a common practice in GNOME (see: ie.
http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/tree/libgimp/gimpbrush_pdb.c,
http://git.gnome.org/browse/evince/tree/shell/ev-daemon.c?id=34c1e36b4db59733b34beca77e617fb5ebf5a1f1#n5
 just to name a few) to indicate authorship


> 
> => I changed mine in foldview code to :
> 
> ----------------------
>      Copyleft      2010-2010 Guillaume Wardavoir
> ----------------------

Please don't do this: 

(from Wikipedia)

First of all - it has no legal meaning.

        Copyleft is a form of licensing and can be used to maintain
        copyright conditions for works such as computer software,
        documents, music and art. In general, copyright law is used by
        an author to prohibit others from reproducing, adapting, or
        distributing copies of the author's work. In contrast, an author
        may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission
        to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any
        resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same
        licensing agreement. Copyleft type licenses are a novel use of
        existing copyright law to ensure a work remains freely
        available. The GNU General Public License, originally written by
        Richard Stallman, was the first copyleft license to see
        extensive use, and continues to dominate the licensing of
        copylefted software. Creative Commons, a non-profit organization
        founded by Lawrence Lessig, provides a similar license called
        ShareAlike.
        
        Copyleft can also be characterized as a copyright licensing
        scheme in which an author surrenders some but not all rights
        under copyright law. Instead of allowing a work to fall
        completely into the public domain (where no ownership of
        copyright is claimed), copyleft allows an author to impose some
        restrictions on those who want to engage in activities that
        would more usually be reserved by the copyright holder. Under
        copyleft, derived works may be produced provided they are
        released under the compatible copyleft scheme. The underlying
        principle is that one benefits freely from the work of others
        but any modifications one makes must be released under
        compatible terms. For this reason some copyleft licenses are
        also known as reciprocal licenses, they have also been described
        as "viral" due to their self-perpetuating terms.[2]
        
        While copyright law gives software authors control over copying,
        distribution and modification of their works, the goal of
        copyleft is to give all users of the software the freedom to
        carry out these activities. In this way, copyleft licenses are
        distinct from other types of free software licenses, which do
        not guarantee that all "downstream" recipients of the program
        receive these rights, or the source code needed to make them
        effective. In particular, permissive free software licenses such
        as BSD allow re-distributors to remove some or all these rights,
        and do not require the distribution of source code. Copyleft
        licenses require that information necessary for reproducing and
        modifying the software to be made available to recipients of the
        executable. The source code files will usually contain a copy of
        the license terms and acknowledge the author(s).
        
        
I will not sub-license any part of gcmd - the whole project will be
available under the same terms. Please do apply the usual license to
your contribution - otherwise I could not merge your work into the gcmd
project.


Cheers,
Piotr