file headers

[Jan Hudec]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2006 at 15:32:20 -0600, John A Meinel wrote:
> Erik Bågfors wrote:
> > 2006/2/24, Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net>:
> >> Lets talk about how the top of a source file should look, so we can all
> >> agree that we've agreed :).
> >>
> > 
> >> # Copyright (C) 2006 by Canonical Ltd
> > 
> > Should all source be copyright to Canonical, does that mean that if we
> > have contributed anything, we have to sign copyright over?
> > 
> > /Erik
> 
> I would like to hear what Canonical has to say about this.
> 
> I realize it is easier if one entity owns all of the copyrights, not to
> say people don't own their own work, just that more than one group can
> have the right to copy. Having a unified group own everything means that
> if there were ever a need to change the license (like the upcoming
> possible move to GPL v3), it is nearly impossible without having a
> unified group.

As for move to GPL v3, bzr is licenced as 'GPL v2 or, at your option, any
later version'. Therefore I think (IANAL) anyone can change it to GPL v3 or,
at your option, any later version' in any particular copy and it will then
apply to all versions derived from that copy (but not to versions derived
from earlier copies, which it won't anyway, since you can't change the
licensing retroactively).

> I suppose that might be one reason to keep Authors, though. Since it is
> kind of a "and these people have rights to this code too."

For one think I vaguely recall GPL actually requires it (though I am not
going to look it up now - maybe it's FSF or some guidelines to require that).

-- 
						 Jan 'Bulb' Hudec <bulb at ucw.cz>
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