Re: copyright questions

[sbelmont700@gmail.com]

On Sunday, August 12, 2012 8:46:29 AM UTC-4, Leo Brewin wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
> 
> 
> I have ported some parts of Lapack & Blas to Ada2012 and I'd like to make the code available for public use. But before I release the code I'd like to canvas your opinions on how I should assign the copyright. The original copyright licence (from the Fortran sources) must be included, that much is clear. But I have made some small changes forced upon me by the transition from Fortran to Ada. Do I need to add a separate copyright notice to this Ada version? 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to get into the debate about the right and wrongs of the various copyright licences (GPL vs. BSD) or the politics of copyright law. I just want to ensure that no third parties can later claim copyright of my work (as limited as it is, it's just a port of the hard work of the original Lapack & Blas team, so there is little intellectual content in my contribution). If someone could point me to an example (of a copyright license for a ported code) that would be a start.
> 

A translation of a copyrighted work is a derivative work, so (assuming you live in the US) anything new your contribute is automatically copyrighted as well (*just* what you contribute).  Essentially, someone would need your permission to distribute copies of your code, and you would need permission from the authors of LAPACK (which you already have, conditionally, via the license).