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List:       koffice-devel
Subject:    Re: copyright messages
From:       Marc Heyvaert <marc_heyvaert () yahoo ! com>
Date:       2004-04-01 14:48:57
Message-ID: 20040401144857.90603.qmail () web41506 ! mail ! yahoo ! com
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Hello,

Well, there is a license policy...

http://developer.kde.org/policies/licensepolicy.html

--- Nicolas Goutte <nicolasg@snafu.de> wrote:
> 
> As we are discussiong it publicly: does the word
> "copyright" need to be on 
> each copyright line or not?
> 
I read up on the links that you provided, and for me
it's clear that the word copyright has to be
there...and it is...only once but that is sufficient.
The "c in a circle" is not needed if the word
copyright is there. We substitute with '(C)' which is
not the same but this is not material in this case, in
fact, even the word copyright and date could be
ommitted, because the CVS provides us with proof of
creation of the work at a particular date. So I'm not
worried legally.

Read the following quote :

HOW TO SECURE A COPYRIGHT
Copyright Secured Automatically upon Creation
The way in which copyright protection is secured is
frequently misunderstood. No publication or
registration or other action in the Copyright Office
is required to secure copyright. (See following Note.)
There are, however, certain definite advantages to
registration. See "Copyright Registration." 

Copyright is secured automatically when the work is
created, and a work is "created" when it is fixed in a
copy or phonorecord for the first time. "Copies" are
material objects from which a work can be read or
visually perceived either directly or with the aid of
a machine or device, such as books, manuscripts, sheet
music, film, videotape, or microfilm. "Phonorecords"
are material objects embodying fixations of sounds
(excluding, by statutory definition, motion picture
soundtracks), such as cassette tapes, CDs, or LPs.
Thus, for example, a song (the "work") can be fixed in
sheet music (" copies") or in phonograph disks ("
phonorecords"), or both.

If a work is prepared over a period of time, the part
of the work that is fixed on a particular date
constitutes the created work as of that date.

end quote.

Taken from
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hsc

Now if we have to provide a symbol, we could

http://copyrightauthority.com/copyright-symbol/

I propose either the symbol directly '©' (with the aid
of KCharSelect or in another way if someone can com up
with a possibility) or by entering &copy; which will
not display correctly. The '©' is an (extended) ASCII
character -no extra font needed, so I think we can use
it and that we do not have to replace it by something
else or by (C).

> 
> Also there is also the problem about how years
> should be listed, see: 
>
http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=99375732508963&w=2
> 
I agree partly for the years. Listing all the years is
probably lagally the correct way to do things, but as
the first aim of the copyright message is to inform
indicating the range ok I think, because xxxx-zzzz can
be understood to mean all years from xxxx to zzzz
included. But I do agree that if a developper has not
contributed any code during a number of years and then
again, this should be listed a 2 blocks. So (as an
example) © 1998-2000, 2002, 2004 Marc Heyvaert
<march@taiji.be> should be ok :)

Marc

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