[Bf-committers] GPL headers

[Martin Poirier]

Hi,

The following is only as far as I know, hopefully
someone with more precise knowledge will
correct/confirm this,

--- Campbell Barton <cbarton at metavr.com> wrote:

> For files we write from scratch, what should we have
> this in the GPL header?
> 
> At the moment many files use this.
> 
> --- snip
>   * Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
> 02111-1307, USA.
>   *
>   * The Original Code is Copyright (C) 2001-2002 by
> NaN Holding BV.
>   * All rights reserved.
>   *
> 
> I dont mind giving my copyright to the blender
> foundation but its a bit 
> misleading to have this for new files.

Actually, NaN Holding BV isn't the same thing as the
Stiching Blender Foundation at all, it's the old NaN
copyright holders (which, if memory serves right still
holds the rights on the logo and name).

For original files, this isn't needed at all I'd say
(since in the context of this sentence, original code
refers to the code donated by NaN).

> In cases where we want to keep copyright can we do
> this? or is that 
> frowned upon?

Doesn't matter to me. In case of potential legal
battles (say, in case someone takes the code and
breaks the GPL), then it's harder for the Blender
Foundation to fight back if the copyrights are
fragmented (though not that much I'd guess, since
there aren't that many contributors). IIRC, that's the
main reason why the FSF ask people to relinquish their
copyrights to them for commited code (actually, they
suggest this for all GPL code, but that's just greedy
I'd say). In any case, I don't really care too much
either way, whether people want to keep their
individual copyrights or hand them over to the BF,
fine by me.

I don't think there ever was an "official" BF stance
on the matter either.

Martin


       
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