*** REASONS FOR KEEPING IN-FILE COPYRIGHT NOTICES *** The Berne Convention regarding collective works and individual copyrights for distinct works included within http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html#P90_12435 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ (5) Collections of literary or artistic works such as encyclopaedias and anthologies which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations shall be protected as such, without prejudice to the copyright in each of the works forming part of such collections. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Clarification of Berne law - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl104.html More on advantages to having individual notices for distinct works - http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Copyright_notice#Contributions_to_Collective_Works GNU Policies for Copyright Notices http://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Notices.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ But if contributors are not all assigning their copyrights to a single copyright holder, it can easily happen that one file has several copyright holders. Each contributor of nontrivial text is a copyright holder. In that case, you should always include a copyright notice in the name of main copyright holder of the file. You can also include copyright notices for other copyright holders as well, and this is a good idea for those who have contributed a large amount and for those who specifically ask for notices in their names. (Sometimes the license on code that you copy in may require preserving certain copyright notices.) But you don't have to include a notice for everyone who contributed to the file (which would be rather inconvenient). Sometimes a program has an overall copyright notice that refers to the whole program. It might be in the README file, or it might be displayed when the program starts up. This copyright notice should mention the year of completion of the most recent major version; it can mention years of completion of previous major versions, but that is optional. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** EXAMPLES OF POLICIES FOR VARIOUS LICENSE APPLICATIONS *** How the Apache license should be applied http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work. To apply the Apache License to your work, attach the following boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information. (Don't include the brackets!) The text should be enclosed in the appropriate comment syntax for the file format. We also recommend that a file or class name and description of purpose be included on the same "printed page" as the copyright notice for easier identification within third-party archives. Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner] Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How the Eclipse Public License should be applied http://www.eclipse.org/legal/copyrightandlicensenotice.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ For EPL projects, the notice template is: /******************************************************************************* * Copyright (c) {DATE} {INITIAL COPYRIGHT OWNER} {OTHER COPYRIGHT OWNERS}. * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html * * Contributors: * {INITIAL AUTHOR} - initial API and implementation *******************************************************************************/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ GPL Application Howto http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How the Sun Public License should be applied http://www.opensource.org/licenses/sunpublic.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Exhibit A -Sun Public License Notice. The contents of this file are subject to the Sun Public License Version 1.0 (the License); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. A copy of the License is available at http://www.sun.com/ The Original Code is _________________. The Initial Developer of the Original Code is ___________. Portions created by ______ are Copyright (C)_________. All Rights Reserved. Contributor(s): ______________________________________. Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the _____ license (the ?[___] License?), in which case the provisions of [______] License are applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only under the terms of the [____] License and not to allow others to use your version of this file under the SPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the [___] License. If you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under either the SPL or the [___] License. [NOTE: The text of this Exhibit A may differ slightly from the text of the notices in the Source Code files of the Original Code. You should use the text of this Exhibit A rather than the text found in the Original Code Source Code for Your Modifications.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ How the Mozilla Public License should be applied http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mozilla1.1.php ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EXHIBIT A -Mozilla Public License. ``The contents of this file are subject to the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/ Software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing rights and limitations under the License. The Original Code is ______________________________________. The Initial Developer of the Original Code is ________________________. Portions created by ______________________ are Copyright (C) ______ ______________________. All Rights Reserved. Contributor(s): ______________________________________. Alternatively, the contents of this file may be used under the terms of the _____ license (the [___] License), in which case the provisions of [______] License are applicable instead of those above. If you wish to allow use of your version of this file only under the terms of the [____] License and not to allow others to use your version of this file under the MPL, indicate your decision by deleting the provisions above and replace them with the notice and other provisions required by the [___] License. If you do not delete the provisions above, a recipient may use your version of this file under either the MPL or the [___] License." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ *** PROPOSED WORDING CHANGES FOR FUTURE FACTOR COPYRIGHT/LICENSE NOTICES *** ! Copyright (c) 2009 Slava Pestov. All rights reserved. ! The contents of this file are licensed under the Simplified BSD License ! A copy of the license is available at http://factorcode.org/license.txt ...where "Slava Pestov" would be the contributing author's name. We should be specific with the version of the BSD license we're using to prevent ambiguity on whether we are using a 2-, 3-, or 4-clause variation of the BSD license (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html) and the "Simplified BSD License" is the official term for our variant as specified by the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php). *** PROPOSED MINOR CHANGES FOR FACTOR COPYRIGHT NOTICE *** -- Copyright (c) 2003-2009, Slava Pestov and contributing authors All rights reserved. Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met: 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE DEVELOPERS AND CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. -- This just alters the current "Slava Pestov and friends" to be more specific and also adds the "All rights reserved." which is in the license template and not technically necessary for members of the Berne Union, but internationally might be beneficial if a case of infringement ever were to come up (however unlikely). There is also no conflict by having the two copyright notices (the ones in the file headers and this main license.txt) since the repository of code would be considered as a collective work as mentioned above.