[haiku-development] Re: AboutSystem window credits (was: Testing the poll)
- From: "Jorge Mare" <kokitomare@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:30:38 -0700
On Fri, Aug 29, 2008 at 4:06 PM, Ingo Weinhold <ingo_weinhold@xxxxxx> wrote:
>> >> Haiku
>> >> Copyright 2001 - 2008 Haiku, Inc.
>> >> <url>http://haiku-os.org</url>
>> >
>> > This reminds me, that this is not even accurate. Most code is copyright
>> > by the
>> > individual authors.
>>
>> I would have expected the opposite, as the coding guidelines
>> recommends using Haiku Inc. copyright holder + a list of authors as
>> the preferred format. But if it as you say, the present notice is not
>> accurate, then it should be changed accordingly, although it is not
>> clear to me what that should be or if the notice is even needed (as I
>> suppose all source code files have a copyright notice after all).
>
> The coding guidelines are probably just not up to date in this respect. We
> did indeed try to do that quite some time ago, but there's really no point to
> it. Besides that this copyright transfer is not even legally possible in some
> countries (e.g. Germany) AFAIK. The current practice is that public header
> files shall be copyright Haiku Inc. while everything else can be copyright by
> the author or by Haiku Inc., whatever is preferred by the author.
If the project allows individual authors to retain the copyright of
their code, then the coding guidelines should be adjusted accordingly,
and the (c) disclaimers should reflect the results of this policy.
Furthermore, since it does not seem possible to have Haiku Inc. as the
sole holder of the copyright to the code (which I understand from what
you said was tried but did not work), I don't think there is a good
reason to mention Haiku Inc. at the top of the AboutSystem window. The
about window already has a Copyrights section (underneath the list of
leads/developers/contributors), and a disclaimer there along the lines
of...
"The copyright to the Haiku code is property of Haiku Inc. or of the
respective author(s) where expressly noted in the source."
...sounds more accurate (this may not be the best English or legal
lingo, but you get the idea).
Jorge
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