Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references

Subject: Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references
From: Andrey Semashev (andrey.semashev_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-09-15 04:34:06

On 15.09.2015 08:45, Gennadiy Rozental wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I suggest we should drop "Copyright Joe Coder 20xx" from all our files. My
> reasons:
>
> * git/svn history provides much better copyright attribution. Each developer
> has a copyright on lines authored. As it is these copyright disclaimers are
> very frequently wrong.

There is no VCS history in the distributed packages. Also, I'm not a 
lawyer, but I'm not sure VCS history counts as a legal indication of 
authorship.

I'll add that personally I feel that history is something that can be 
lost relatively painlessly (e.g. due to transition to a different VCS or 
github being destroyed or whatever other reason). All relevant 
information should still be available in the source code.

> * I am never clear what this line really mean. Copyright Joe Coder 2010 -
> does this mean Joe has copyright up to 2010, starting 2010 or only in 2010?
> Should one keep updating these disclaimers every January?

Yeah, that is confusing to me as well.

> * For libraries which are maintained by multiple developers and/or which
> were moved from one maintainer to another maintainer - these disclaimers
> either wrong or pain to maintain.

I see no problem with that. Don't remove anyone from the copyright 
notice, add yourself only when your contribution is large enout (at your 
best judgement).