On Thu, 31 Jul 2008, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
--- /dev/null +++ b/drivers/mtd/nand/s3c64xx.c @@ -0,0 +1,315 @@ +/*
- (C) Copyright 2006 DENX Software Engineering
Please add your name here.
I will add my copyright in a couple of files, but I would rather not add it to Makefiles. Below I quote an earlier post on this list (funnily, I wasn't able to get it in sourceforge's archive...), which addresses Copyrights in Makefiles. To me it sounds reasonable, because in my example I really added very little "IP" to it, almost exclusively copy-paste from other Makefiles. What I learned, is one may never delete copyrights from files, ones they are there, that's why I preserved yours - that's how this file was in Samsung's version. But I don't think my Copyright there will serve any good purpose.
+/*
- Function to print out oob buffer for debugging
- Written by jsgood
Then jsgood should be mentioned in the (C) lines?
Is it allowed to add other peaople's copyright without their consent?
I am working on the rest comments... cleaning up others' mess.
Thanks Guennadi --- Guennadi Liakhovetski, Ph.D.
DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany Phone: +49-8142-66989-0 Fax: +49-8142-66989-80 Email: office@denx.de
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From gerald.vanbaren@ge.com Wed Jul 9 14:11:51 2008
Date: Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:09:10 -0400 From: Jerry Van Baren gerald.vanbaren@ge.com To: Guennadi Liakhovetski lg@denx.de Cc: Jens Gehrlein sew_s@tqs.de, u-boot-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] [PATCH 04/10 v2] [ARM] TQMA31: add new board with i.MX31 processor
Guennadi Liakhovetski wrote:
On Tue, 8 Jul 2008, Jens Gehrlein wrote:
diff --git a/board/tqc/tqma31/Makefile b/board/tqc/tqma31/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7e17c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/board/tqc/tqma31/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,48 @@ +# +# Copyright (C) 2008, Guennadi Liakhovetski lg@denx.de +# Copyright (C) 2008, Jens Gehrlein sew_s@tqs.de
Thanks for the credit, but, although IANAL, I think, one does not _have_ to preserve the copyright of the original file when it gets copied to a new one. Otherwise most open-source files would have a veeeery long list of Copyrights:-) Am I right?
Thanks Guennadi
IANAL, but I play one on Groklaw sometimes, much to PJ's chagrin. ;-)
This is a squishy area. It is dependent on what of the original work survives the modification and whether the surviving pieces are copyrightable. It also depends on what country you are contemplating suing in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitations_and_exceptions_to_copyright
Things that must be done in certain ways are not copyrightable, so Makefiles are pretty marginal to start with IMHO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_of_originality
My opinion is to leave the original copyright notice in there and err on the side of preserving reasonable copyright notices. The lawyers will be happy to tell us that we did it wrong if it ever came to a lawsuit, and I would prefer that they tell us that we had a useless copyright notice in the file rather than tell us that we should have had a notice but didn't...
Best regards, gvb