RE: [lwip-devel] lwIP Copyright

[Bill Auerbach]

>> On Thu, 2010-09-30 at 12:16 -0400, Bill Auerbach wrote:
>>>>>> [...] and seeing they only mention SICS (2001, 2002) as copyright
>holder,
>>> This is not the exact copyright listed in the files for lwIP.
>First of all "SICS (2001, 2002)" is an abbreviation created by me. In
>long terms it's "Copyright (c) 2001, 2002 Swedish Institute of Computer
>Science.".

I knew this - it was the 2002 versus 2004 difference.  *I* didn't realize
the COPYING wasn't the same as (most of/all of?) the source files.

>Exactly. It's our own problem that our copyrights differ in files and in
>the root directory file, I guess.

True and I didn't see that.

>> If they're distributing source and have edited or removed copyright
>> statements, or they're distributing binaries and haven't included the
>> lwIP copyright then I'll have a word and ask them to correct it.
>They do distribute sources and have our complete sources integrated
>(they are modified a bit from the original release though).
>And they do have included the copyright from "COPYING" in their binary
>distribution, too, so that's OK, too. It's on us to change that file if
>we want future references to be different.

My understanding is that the copyright in the source(s) covers is 2001 to
2004 and anything added after 2004 is not covered in the copyright and
therefore not explicitly copyrighted.  If there is an implicit copyright I
don't know.  I have seen many many times "All rights reserved" added to the
(c) and I don't see any reason not to add that too.

I didn't mean to open a can of worms - I only wanted to point out that the
copyright wasn't covering 2005 to 2010 as you're nearing an official
release.  Especially now as lwIP and this release seem to be gaining a lot
more exposure.

Bill