comparison admin/notes/copyright @ 106897:68e28bd7d00a

Add bug number.

106896:00c4f0387055

assignment. If adding a whole file adjust the copyright statements in
the file.

2. When installing code written by someone else, the ChangeLog entry
should be in the name of the author of the code, not the person who
installs it. I think it is helpful to put the author (if not yourself)
in the CVS log as well; and to not install any of your own changes in
the same commit.

3. With images, add the legal info to a README file in the directory
containing the image.

4. If you add a lot of text to a previously trivial file that had no

5. Please don't just add an FSF copyright without checking that is the
right thing to do.


Every non-trivial file distributed through the Emacs CVS should be
self-explanatory in terms of copyright and license. This includes
files that are not distributed in Emacs releases (for example, the
admin/ directory), because the whole Emacs CVS is publicly
available.

The definition of triviality is a little vague, but a rule of thumb is
that any file with less than 15 lines of actual content is trivial. If
a file is auto-generated (eg ldefs-boot.el) from another one in the
CVS, then it does not really matter about adding a copyright statement
to the generated file.

Legal advice says that we could, if we wished, put a license notice
even in trivial files, because copyright law in general looks at the
overall work as a whole. It is not _necessary_ to do so, and rms
prefers that we do not. This means one needs to take care that trivial

The years in the copyright notice should be updated every year (see
file "years" in this directory). The PDF versions of refcards etc
should display copyright notices (an exception to the rule about
"generated" files), but these can just display the latest year. The
full list of years should be kept in comments in the source file. If
these are distributed in CVS, check in a regenerated version when the
tex files are updated.

Copyright changes should be propagated to any associated repositories
(eg Gnus, MH-E), but I think in every case this happens automatically
(?).

assigned (check copyright.list) to the FSF (in which case the original
author should be removed and the year(s) transferred to the FSF); or
else it is possible the file should not be in Emacs at all (please
report!).

Note that it seems painfully clear that one cannot rely on CVS logs,
or even ChangeLogs, for older changes. People often installed changes
from others, without recording the true authorship.

[For reference, most of these points were established via email with
rms, 2007/1, "Copyright years".]

*** These are copyright issues that need not be fixed until after
    Emacs 22 is released (though if they can be fixed before, that is
    obviously good):


Is it OK to just `cvs remove' a file for legal reasons, or is
something more drastic needed? A removed file is still available from
CVS, if suitable options are applied. (This CVS issue obviously does
not affect a release).
  rms: will ask lawyer


Make sure that all files with non-standard copyrights or licenses are
noted in this file.

The EMACS_22_BASE branch was changed to GPLv3 (or later) 2007/07/25.

Some notes:
(see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg01431.html)

1. There are some files in Emacs CVS which are not part of Emacs (eg
those included from Gnulib). These are all copyright FSF and (at time
of writing) GPL >= 2. rms says may as well leave the licenses of these
alone (may import them from Gnulib again). These are:

    Gnulib:

106897:68e28bd7d00a

assignment. If adding a whole file adjust the copyright statements in
the file.

2. When installing code written by someone else, the ChangeLog entry
should be in the name of the author of the code, not the person who
installs it.  I think it is helpful to put the author (if not yourself)
in the commit log as well (you can also use bzr commit's "--author"
option); and to not install any of your own changes in the same commit.

3. With images, add the legal info to a README file in the directory
containing the image.

4. If you add a lot of text to a previously trivial file that had no

5. Please don't just add an FSF copyright without checking that is the
right thing to do.


Every non-trivial file distributed through the Emacs repository should be
self-explanatory in terms of copyright and license. This includes
files that are not distributed in Emacs releases (for example, the
admin/ directory), because the whole Emacs repository is publicly
available.

The definition of triviality is a little vague, but a rule of thumb is
that any file with less than 15 lines of actual content is trivial. If
a file is auto-generated (eg ldefs-boot.el) from another one in the
repository, then it does not really matter about adding a copyright
statement to the generated file.

Legal advice says that we could, if we wished, put a license notice
even in trivial files, because copyright law in general looks at the
overall work as a whole. It is not _necessary_ to do so, and rms
prefers that we do not. This means one needs to take care that trivial

The years in the copyright notice should be updated every year (see
file "years" in this directory). The PDF versions of refcards etc
should display copyright notices (an exception to the rule about
"generated" files), but these can just display the latest year. The
full list of years should be kept in comments in the source file. If
these are distributed in the repository, check in a regenerated
version when the tex files are updated.

Copyright changes should be propagated to any associated repositories
(eg Gnus, MH-E), but I think in every case this happens automatically
(?).

assigned (check copyright.list) to the FSF (in which case the original
author should be removed and the year(s) transferred to the FSF); or
else it is possible the file should not be in Emacs at all (please
report!).

Note that it seems painfully clear that one cannot rely on commit logs,
or even ChangeLogs, for older changes. People often installed changes
from others, without recording the true authorship.

[For reference, most of these points were established via email with
rms, 2007/1, "Copyright years".]

*** These are copyright issues that need not be fixed until after
    Emacs 22 is released (though if they can be fixed before, that is
    obviously good):


Is it OK to just `bzr remove' a file for legal reasons, or is
something more drastic needed? A removed file is still available from
the repository, if suitable options are applied. (This issue obviously
does not affect a release).
  rms: will ask lawyer


Make sure that all files with non-standard copyrights or licenses are
noted in this file.

The EMACS_22_BASE branch was changed to GPLv3 (or later) 2007/07/25.

Some notes:
(see http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2007-07/msg01431.html)

1. There are some files in the Emacs tree which are not part of Emacs (eg
those included from Gnulib). These are all copyright FSF and (at time
of writing) GPL >= 2. rms says may as well leave the licenses of these
alone (may import them from Gnulib again). These are:

    Gnulib: