Open source project copyright issue

Question

I am the author of an open source project that is released under GPL2. I am starting to work on this one for 2 years.

In each of the source code files, I attach the following information at the top.

/* * 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 2 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, write to the Free Software * Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. * * Copyright (C) 2009 Yan Cheng Cheok < [e-mail] > */ 

Now the project is drawing public attention. A growing number of programmers are joining. It was interesting to me:

(1) When a programmer changes the source file of the source code, I need to add its name to the copyright section. But, with the increase in the number of programmers, will this not keep the title almost unreadable? For instance:

• Copyright (C) 2009 Yang Cheng Chock, John

(2) If a programmer adds a new source code file, who owns the source code? Me? Or is he?

(3) If the project has mixed source code for copyright, say

Ac, Bc, Cc data file is copyright Yan Cheng Chok Dc, Ec, Fc source file is copyright John

Will there be a problem? Say, in the future, John decides to switch Dc, Ec, Fc using a different license, and Yang Chen Chek disagrees with that ... Who will have the last word then?

To avoid this type of conflict, should I apply all the corrected source texts, is copyright subject to me? But I also do not want the new developer to feel that his work is not credited properly.

(4) Should there be a “year” in copyright information? If I set 2009, does that mean 2010, I no longer have copyright?

Answer 1

I am not a lawyer, but I studied this.

As the author of the software, whether it be a patch or a new bit of functionality, you fully retain copyright in your source code. You can decide how to license it or who is licensing it.

When someone contributes to your project, you should at least receive an email from them stating which terms of their code are licensed. For example, if you have a MIT project, and someone contributes their own patch, which is the GPL, you are in a fairly large pickle. To accept this, you will have to re-license your project under the GPL.

So first, first:

• Get something in writing from a contributor who explains what license applies to his contribution.

Many open source projects would like to use leverage to replace open source licenses, for example, for example, you want to rename a license under GPLv3. You will need to contact each employee to do this, some of them may not be available, and again you will be a little pickle.

To combat the fact that many large open source projects have JCA (joint copyright), which in technical words means: “All your contributions belong to us” (see, for example, the agreement on consent to the sun: http: // www.openoffice.org/licenses/sca.pdf )

When the JCA is in place, your source may have a simple copyright: "Copyright (C) 2009 Yan Cheng Cheok [e-mail] " because you are the copyright owner.

If the JCA does not exist, I think the material is a little dirty, you need to make corrections to the files and put the correct author names in the files you need. Or even better, save only one License.txt and get all the confirmations in one place.

So, to avoid all this hassle, the easiest way:

• Get JCA in place

A year in a copyright document does not mean that it expires next year.

Answer 2

You might want to delete this section:

 , or (at your option) any later version. 

as it changes your rights based on any future changes to the license.

I am not a lawyer, but as soon as someone provides you with a copy of their source code under a specific copyright law, they will have a difficult time changing the license for you.

If they introduced a new file, I would let them put their copyright on the file.

You can update the years in your copyright file every year.

The Nolo Press has excellent copyright books. If interested, contact a lawyer.

Answer 3

(IANAL)

Changes made by other participants are the copyright of the author. When contributors give you these changes, you can redistribute them under the GPL. What you cannot do is relicense contributor changes under GPL-incompatible terms.

For members who decide to change licenses, this should not be a problem. When you have contributions, such as the GPL, a member may stop issuing new copies of their code, but they cannot return a copy that you already have.

Answer 4

Ianal

Each participant must have copyright on the parts that they wrote, but this should not be a big problem.

John was unable to return his code after he had already released it under the GPL, but he could reissue it under a different license or create a non-GPL plug, assuming that each line of code in that plug is his, or he has permission from other participants.

If someone steals a project in violation of the GPL, you can still go after them for the parts that you wrote, while other developers can do the same for their own.

Some large open source projects require copyright from the participants to ensure their ability to protect the project as a whole and their ability to redirect the project in the future without returning or obtaining permission from each contributor. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/SCA