Bug: "hg version" copyright needs updated year and language

[Martin Geisler]

Mads Kiilerich <mads at kiilerich.com> writes:

> (moving to -devel)

Thanks.

> Martin Geisler wrote, On 02/18/2009 05:46 PM:
>>
>> I suggest we standardize all file headers to look like this:
>>
>> ----
>> # Copyright 200x-200y Matt Mackall <mpm at selenic.com> and others
>> #
>> # This software may be used and distributed according to the terms
>> # of the GNU General Public License, incorporated herein by reference.
>
> I am not a lawyer and do not claim any copyright over Mercurial and
> do not want to start a discussion, but nobody said anything and I
> really think a heads-up is needed:
>
> Putting your name and a copyright notice in a file does not just give
> a silly mix of names, but it really indicates who collectively holds
> the copyright over that file and owns it.

I'm certainly also not a laywer :-) But as I understand it, I have
copyright over all significant changes I make, even if I don't put my
name anywhere. In principle, the mere fact that I wrote the code gives
me the copyright over that code.

> Some "open source" projects require all copyright to be assigned to
> them so they can relicense it without asking others - that is how
> for example Sun, FSF and MySQL did/does. AFAIK Matt never asked for
> contributors to assign the copyright to him. That is our guarantee
> that Mercurial will stay GPLv2 forever.

Yeah, we should not try to make people assign their copyrights, I also
don't like that.

> FWIW I don't know what "and others" means in a copyright
> statement. It might be fine in a one-liner informational summary,
> but I don't think it makes sense to use it in a copyright statement.

To me it means "look at 'hg log file.py' for more details", i.e., the
copyright of a given file is held by the contributors.

> By releasing a file with any of the names removed you are probably
> violating their copyright, unless you very carefully remove their
> whole contribution and all work derived from it. Be careful and ask
> your lawyer - and if you ever plan to go the US (and leave it again)
> then be sure to consult a US lawyer too ;-)

That might be true -- you're thinking of the requirements of many
licenses to keep the copyright notice intact?

I could not find a definitive statement that said whether or the GPL
requires one to keep the names in the copyright lines. It says:

    1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
  source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
  conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
  copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
  notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any
  warranty;

and that makes me wonder what "appropriate copyright notice" means.

-- 
Martin Geisler

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