Michael Tautschnig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > PS.: Please CC me, I'm not subscribed.
Done. > I'm the maintainer of the sat4j package, which, in the upstream SVN, > includes lots of test data (plain text files, think of them as > mathematical equations). Currently these lack any kind of > copyright/license statement, so I remove them before building the > tar ball. It would, however, be desirable to package them as well, > and upstream is willing to do whatever is needed have them included. > So, my question is: > > - What kind of copyright/license statement is required? Should the > usual (in this case Eclipse Public) license header be added, even > though this is not "source code"? The general principle (in my understanding) is: Make explicit and unambiguous, to anyone who may receive the work from any source, the copyright status and grant of license for every file comprising the work, where: * "copyright status" means which specific persons hold copyright, and in what years (since copyright is held for a limited time, at least in principle). * "grant of license" is an explicit statement from the copyright holder of the form "you may do these things, normally reserved to the copyright holder, with this specific work, if you abide by these terms and conditions". The grant of license may list all the terms, or it may refer the reader to a separate document where the license terms are contained; but without the "you may" and the "this specific work" statement, mere inclusion of a license document is *not* a grant of license. > - Should be it be added to each and every file? The how-to-use-this-license-for-your-own-work part of the GNU GPL, which speaks about program source code, recommends that both of these should appear as a header block in every file. This makes it easier to move such files from one work to another without losing their copyright and license information. That's good advice for program source code. However, it's only one way of meeting the general principle of "make the copyright and license explicit and unambiguous for every file". Another possible way is to put all the information in one document that specifies every file comprising the work, and gives the complete set of copyright holders and which files contain their particular work, and what years. This seems more attractive to some, since all the information is in one place, and has an appearance of less "clutter" in the work. However, it makes the very dubious assumption that this information, in its separate file, will continue to be accurately maintained as the work inevitably accumulates new contributors, new copyright years, or component works under different licenses. If that maintenance is not done, the provenance of each work becomes that much harder to determine. It also depends on that separate file accompanying any individual file if it is redistributed separately from the rest. For works in a form that don't have a clear place to put such a "copyright header" (e.g. an audio recording, or a formatted data file), the "copyright information in a separate file" approach makes more sense; but the maintenance and aggregation burden is not lessened in any degree. -- \ “Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?” “I think so, | `\ Brain, but what kind of rides do they have in Fabioland?” | _o__) —_Pinky and The Brain_ | Ben Finney -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
