Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references

Subject: Re: [boost] Copyright-less licence references
From: Gennadiy Rozental (rogeeff_at_[hidden])
Date: 2015-09-15 12:34:06

Paul A. Bristow <pbristow <at> hetp.u-net.com> writes:

> 
> Sorry but it ain't broke, so let's not fix it.

Sorry, but it is. The copyright information you type in your source code 
starting to lie practically immediately you commit the code. It does not 
hold the water in any format proceedings, lying to reader, and annoying to 
maintain to author. It does not says what specifically one has a copyright 
to and is wrong practically everywhere in boost. What does these lines 
indicate:

//   Copyright (c) Marshall Clow 2008-2012.

or these 

//  Copyright (c) 2002 Peter Dimov and Multi Media Ltd.
//  Copyright (c) 2008 Peter Dimov

or these

// Copyright Christopher Kormanyos 2002 - 2013.
// Copyright 2011 -2013 John Maddock.

or these

//  Copyright Beman Dawes, 2002-2005
//  Copyright Vladimir Prus, 2002

These says nothing about who has the copyright to what, when it is 
expires, what happen after last year mentioned, does all source in the 
file was originated in first year mentioned and so on.

Look at Google released HBase for example. And I can assure you Google has 
lots lots of lawyers. In other projects I see "Copyright xxxx <project> 
authors" disclaimer. Even this is unnecessary, IMO.

It is fine probably to keep the information in one place somewhere in 
documentation about who worked on the library, but it not a source of 
copyright anyway.

Gennadiy