Re: [boost] Do Jamfiles need copyrights?

From: Toon Knapen (toon.knapen_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-02-06 06:57:07

Recently had a talk with a patent-laywer from Philips. I deduced following from this conversation
(my own interpretation and IANAL)

Copyright is automatic. From the moment you make something, you own the copyright (so
actually no explicit copyright statement is necessary although it is advised). From the
moment you change a file that is copyrighted by somebody else, copyright is shared 
(of course, generally the copyright does not allow you to make modifications)

Now open-source projects (including boost) want to provide more rights to the user as the
default copyright allows. So we add a copyright notice also indicating a license. This license
is necessary to allow others to make modifications, distribute it etc.

So that's why the boost source-code can be considered open-source. However if a Jamfile
does not contain a license, default copyright-right apply and thus the Jamfile can not be 
distributed by others than the copyright-holder. 

So we certainly need to add a license statement and at the same time might indicate
the copyright too (Indicating the license is still the most important aspect).

On Wednesday 05 February 2003 23:18, Beman Dawes wrote:
> At 01:16 PM 2/5/2003, Martin Wille wrote:
> 
>  >Beman Dawes wrote:
>  >> Bjorn Karlsson and I are wondering if Boost should require copyrights 
> on
>  >> Jamfiles.
>  >
>  >Jamfiles are part of the build system; they won't become part of
>  >a an executable. So everything is fine when a vendor ships a
>  >binary or a DLL.
>  >
>  >However, when Boost is incorporated to some other open source
>  >project, missing copyrights and licences might become a problem.
>  >
>  >Moreover, copyright statements hinder evil-doers to wrongfully
>  >claim ownership.
>  >
>  >I'm not a lawyer, so I'm just guessing, bit I think we should
>  >put copyrights into Jamfiles, Makefiles and the like as well.
> 
> I'm convinced.