[dev] Copyright questions

[Ralf Lang]

Am Mittwoch, 27. Juli 2011, 11:50:44 schrieb Gunnar Wrobel:
> Hi!
> 
> I was wondering a bit about the way we mention copyright in our code.
> 
> We do have copyright notices in most of our files, sometimes PHP
> doclinks as well. and some packages (the applications) offer
> COPYING/LICENSE.
> 
> The copyright statement in the code files usually mention the
> COPYING/LICENSE file that should come with the package. For the
> framework components its is usually not present though.
> 
> And I don't even know if having such copyright statements in the code
> is actually needed. I once read that the COPYING/LICENSE file in a
> package would be enough. The maintenance effort of having maybe only
> two or three links to copyright information would be much lower.
> 
> So I wonder a bit if we can improve the situation. It is at least
> somewhat confusing to me at the moment and if possible I would like to
> get it simpler. Does anybody know what requirements we actually
> see/have in that area? I'm willing to invest a bit of time to find out
> what kind of legal requirements exist but maybe somebody already knows.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Gunnar

As nobody else jumped on this: 

I'm really in favor of changing the license headers in the files to:

 * Copyright 1999-2011 The Horde Project (http://www.horde.org/)
 *
 * See the enclosed file COPYING for license information (LGPL). If you did
 * not receive this file, see http://opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.php

into 

 * Copyright 1999-2011 The Horde Project (http://www.horde.org/)
 *
 * See http://opensource.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.php 
 * for license information (LGPL)

and dropping the shipped files. As long as the law-savvy agree...

-- 
Ralf Lang
Linux Consultant / Developer

B1 Systems GmbH
Osterfeldstraße 7 / 85088 Vohburg / http://www.b1-systems.de
GF: Ralph Dehner / Unternehmenssitz: Vohburg / AG: Ingolstadt,HRB 3537