Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of OpenPOOMA - savannah.nongnu.org

[Sylvain Beucler]

On Mon, Nov 01, 2004 at 12:56:43PM +0100, Richard Guenther wrote:
> Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> >On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 12:38:11AM +0200, Richard Guenther wrote:
> >
> >>Sylvain Beucler wrote:
> >>
> >>>The licensing issues are cleared except for one thing: in order to
> >>>release your project properly and unambiguously under the Expat
> >>>license, please place copyright notices and permission-to-copy
> >>>statements at the beginning of every file of source code. You have to
> >>>update the license notice and add a (missing) copyright notice to each
> >>>file of the repository that is more than 10 lines long.
> >>>
> >>>For more information, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html
> >>>(aimed at the GNU GPL but can be used as a basis).
> >>
> >>So, to understand that right, at the moment every source file contains
> >>
> >>// ACL:license
> >>// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>// This software and ancillary information (herein called "SOFTWARE")
> >>// called POOMA (Parallel Object-Oriented Methods and Applications) is
> >>// made available under the terms described here.  The SOFTWARE has been
> >>// approved for release with associated LA-CC Number LA-CC-98-65.
> >>//
> >>// Unless otherwise indicated, this SOFTWARE has been authored by an
> >>// employee or employees of the University of California, operator of the
> >>// Los Alamos National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36 with
> >>// the U.S. Department of Energy.  The U.S. Government has rights to use,
> >>// reproduce, and distribute this SOFTWARE. The public may copy, 
> >>distribute,
> >>// prepare derivative works and publicly display this SOFTWARE without
> >>// charge, provided that this Notice and any statement of authorship are
> >>// reproduced on all copies.  Neither the Government nor the University
> >>// makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any liability or
> >>// responsibility for the use of this SOFTWARE.
> >>//
> >>// If SOFTWARE is modified to produce derivative works, such modified
> >>// SOFTWARE should be clearly marked, so as not to confuse it with the
> >>// version available from LANL.
> >>//
> >>// For more information about POOMA, send e-mail to address@hidden,
> >>// or visit the POOMA web page at http://www.acl.lanl.gov/pooma/.
> >>// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>// ACL:license
> >>
> >>at its head.  There is no copyright notice - and if I read the license
> >>ok, the copyright holder (in the US sense) is the U.S. Department of 
> >>Energy?  So I'd add
> >>
> >>// Copyright (C) 1997-2002  U.S. Department of Energy
> >>//
> >>// This file is part of FreePOOMA.
> >>
> >>to each file?
> >
> >
> >I have to admit the copyright attribution is not clear. First, it is
> >included in the license itself, which is unusual. Then, it says that
> >"The U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this
> >SOFTWARE"; if such a statement is made, it is likely that the
> >U.S. Government (and hence, the U.S. Department of Energy) is not the
> >copyright holder of the software. So the copyright holder would be the
> >University of California or the Los Alamos National Laboratory, but I
> >am not sure at all. Do you have a way to verify which entity holds the
> >copyright?
> 
> Asking the folks at CodeSourcery reveals that they are not sure either. 
>  To quote Mark Mitchell:
> 
> "I don't think there is a clear status here.  The major body of the code 
> was written at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, so they would have 
> the copyright.  But, whether that means LANL itself, the University of 
> California, the Department of Energy, or some other organization is a 
> matter for LANL itself to decide.  Yes, some of the changes would be 
> copyright CodeSourcery, but we're happy to place those in the public 
> domain."
> 
> and finally suggests:
> 
> "I really do not know, and I'm not comfortable offerring any opinion. 
> Unfortunately, I think you will either need to do this on your own 
> responsibility, or contact LANL for more explicit instructions."
> 
> So, if I go for my own responsibility (I don't know whom to contact at 
> LANL), I'd do
> 
>   Copyright (C) 1997-2002  Los Alamos National Laboratory
>   Copyright (C) 1998-2004  CodeSourcery LLC
> 
> on behalf of browsing through the CVS history and consulting the CREDITS
> file (which doesn't talk about University of California at all), noting
> that Mark Mitchell thinks it is on the behalf of LANL to decide.
> 
> Is that ok with you?
> 
> Thanks again for your patience,


That is ok with us, except for a bit of syntax.

http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html
states that you should not write years like xxxx-yyyy, but instead "a
list of years in which versions, later released, were completed."


Send me an updated tarball with these new copyright and license
notices and I'll approve your project.

Regards,


-- 
Sylvain