Re: Overview of copyright issues

[Joseph Wakeling]

Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote:
> Jan and I know that the current situation wrt copyright headers and
> license notes is not ideal, but we never could bring ourselves to fix
> it, because there always were more important things to do.
> Nevertheless, if someone feels energetic to take this on, they have my
> blessing.

Well, I'm happy to go fix the actual files, just not sure what the
precise legal ramifications of this are.  I mean, if _I_ change the
copyright notice in a file that is _your_ copyright ... :-)

But anyway, I'm willing to do the typing side of it.  I just need you to
clarify exactly what I should put: presumably GPLv2 for code files and
GFDLv1.1 for docs are the base licenses, but would you and Jan approve
putting GPLv2 or later for your own contributions?  What are your
thoughts (and recommendations) for code written by others?  I know that
you ran into a paperwork issue some time back that has never been resolved.

I'd consider taking on the paperwork side as well (not right now, maybe
a month or two from now) but I want to try and to as much as possible of
what can be done without it.

What I could suggest as an approval mechanism is for individual authors
to 'sign off' the patches (as git allows) that add licensing notices to
their files, to show that they consent to what has been put there.