From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cf2bc42267320085 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-05-17 07:05:53 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: antonio_duran@hotmail.com (Antonio Duran) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Copyright preambles in the sources Date: 17 May 2002 07:05:53 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.101.1.126 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1021644353 22924 127.0.0.1 (17 May 2002 14:05:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 17 May 2002 14:05:53 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:24267 Date: 2002-05-17T14:05:53+00:00 List-Id: "Alexandre E. Kopilovitch" wrote in message news:... > Here was plenty of talk about the copyright issues from the user's viewpoint, > but just now I faced a copyright issue as a developer, and need an advice or > some explanation. > I constantly see in various sources a "copyright preamble". Although I fully > respect the author's rights to put any comments into the sources, I deeply > distaste those "copyright preambles" inside each source file. Therefore I wish > to avoid such a practice in my own sources. But being substantially foreing > to the whole Copyright/Patent/Intellectual_Property world (because of Soviet > background), I don't understand why those preambles are so widespreading. > why they appear even in the obviously non-commercial packages. And I fear to > violate a rule when I don't feel the reason for it -;) . > So, why you, independent non-commercial developers, put the "copyright > preambles" at the beginning of each file of the distributions? Is it a necessary > thing? What dangers I invite if I do not include that preambles in each source > file, but simply include a separate "copyright notice" file into the distribution? > > > Alexander Kopilovitch aek@vib.usr.pu.ru > Saint-Petersburg > Russia I can only answer your question from my personal point of view so, please, do not take this answer as a general case. First, I think that there is a lot of confussion on what really free software is. Perhaps this confussion has to do with the polymorphic nature of the english word "free". Free software means that the license of that software allows you or provides you the right to copy, distribute, modify, or improve that software because you have access to the source code. Free software does not mean that the software has zero price. So there is nothing that precludes free software of being commercial software. Second, whenever I write software, I'd like to receive credit for what I've done so I put a copyright notice on every file I write. And, I like to make clear that I'm the author of that file (for the good and for the bad) and I want to preserve my rights over my own work. Moreover, I also make clear that the software has no warranties. Third, the main reason for this is to preserve my right and the right of those who use, modify, distribute or improve the work I originated by avoiding that our collective work be patented by a third. Such a patent will deny us the right to use our software. Visit http://www.gnu.org to see what means free software and the kind of licenses for free software and follow this link to know about the harm that software patents could do: http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/danger-of-software-patents.txt