Re: Copyright notices.

[John Fleck <jfleck inkstain net>]

Pat -
This seems a reasonable change. Can you file it in bugzilla?
Cheers,
John

On Thu, 2002-11-14 at 03:53, Pat Costello wrote:
> There was a string on the developers mailing list that related to the proper use 
> of copyright notices. See attached. 
> 
> I had a look at GNOME Help manuals and I noticed that we are using the following 
> format: 
> 
> "Copyright" <copyright symbol> [copyright date] [copyright owner]
> 
> According to my researches, the format should be one of the following: 
> 
> Where Space is Not a Problem: 
> =============================
> 
> "Copyright" [copyright date] [copyright owner]
> 
> or
> 
> Where Space is Limited: 
> =======================
> 
> <copyright symbol> [copyright date] [copyright owner]
> 
> Therefore, what we are using right now is overkill. I suggest we change the 
> format to the first one above, namely the space-is-not-a-problem format. This 
> looks like a style sheet change. 
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> ----------------Attachment from desktop-devel-list gnome org-----------------
> On 14 Nov 2002 Pat opined: 
> 
> The view from the documentation perspective...
> 
> Thanks for bringing up this point. I did a bit of research and here are my 
> findings: 
> 
> - A discrete piece of software or documentation should always contain a proper 
> copyright notice. A statement of the bleating obvious you say, well, the key 
> word here is "proper". 
> 
> - A proper copyright notice consists of the following: 
> 
> 	o 	The word "Copyright" or, if there is a shortage of space, the 		
> 		copyright symbol, which is a C in a closed circle. 
> 
> 		NOTE: (c) has no legal weight. Never use (c). 
> 	
> 	o 	The year of first publication of the work, usually the year of 
> 		FCS.
> 		
> 	o 	The owner of the copyright. 
> 	
> I've just noticed that in the Help and other documentation we have been using 
> both the word "Copyright" and the copyright symbol in our copyright notices. 
> Whereas this is not wrong, it is belt-and-braces and really should be just 
> "Copyright". I need to take up this topic on the gnome-doc-list. I also need to 
> include the above information in the GNOME Documentation Style Guide so we have 
> the topic covered for future reference. 
> 
> Pat
> 	
>  To: Gareth Bowker <tgb tgb org uk>
> > Cc: desktop-devel-list gnome org
> > Am Son, 2002-09-22 um 12.46 schrieb Gareth Bowker:
> > > On Sun, Sep 22, 2002 at 11:57:08AM +0200, Christian Neumair wrote:
> > > > Another aspect are the copyright entries:
> > > > Some developery use
> > > > (C) <year> <name> or
> > > > Copyright (C) <name> <year>,
> > > > some others
> > > > <name> (C) <year>
> > > > and so on.
> > > > What's the "official" (or at least the most used) expression?
> > > > Additionally, we should replace the (C) by a copyright character
> > > > wherever possible (e.g. UTF-8, ISO-8859-X charsets).
> > > 
> > > I heard a while ago that you should always write the word Copyright in full,
> > > e.g.
> > > 
> > > Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation
> > > 
> > > That's also the most-used form I've seen.
> > > 
> > > I seem to recall that (C) holds no legal meaning, the copyright symbol
> > > however does. Or something like that. It was a long time ago.
> > 
> > Whohoo!
> > Just look at gnome-panel HEAD po. I think we broke our record:
> > (c) 2001 Red Hat, Inc.
> > (C) 2002 Red Hat, Inc.
> > (c) 2001 Red Hat, Inc
> > Copyright 2002 Red Hat, Inc.
> > 
> > I hope we'll find a solution until 2.2 is released.
> > 
> > regs,
> >  Chris
> > 
> > 
> 
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-- 
John Fleck
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