[Biojava-l] Copyright notices

[Thomas Down]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 05:39:31PM -0800, Emig, Robin wrote:
>  Copyright © 2000,2001 Cambridge Antibody Technology. All Rights Reserved
> 
> I noticed that many files contain the above copyright notice. 
> 
> 1) Does this conflict at all with the files being under lgpl
> 2) regardless can we remove them? and put the lgpl notice?


Is there a problem with:

/*
 * This code may be freely distributed and modified under the
 * terms of the GNU Lesser General Public Licence.  This should
 * be distributed with the code.  If you do not have a copy,
 * see:
 *
 *      http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html
 */

Which is found at the top of pretty much all files in the
project, including the CAT contributions.

The boilerplate at the top of the file then goes on to state
that copyright is shared among the authors of the file.  The
message on the CAT contributions just repeats this, I don't
think it's taking any rights away from anyone.

Are there any changes you'd like to see made to the boilerplate
which would make matters clearer?

The only real alternative we have to the current copyright
arrangements is to get everyone who contributes to the projects
to sign documents attributing copyright to a central organization.
The GNU project does this.  But it's a fair amount of trouble for
contributors, and I suspect some people who are currently able
to contribute to the project would end up either fighting their
legal departments, or just giving up completely.


     Thomas.