Re: [Qemu-devel] Changing the QEMU svn VERSION string

[Andreas Färber]

Am 07.04.2009 um 18:29 schrieb M. Warner Losh:

> In message: <address@hidden>
>            Andreas_Färber <address@hidden> writes:
> : Hi,
> :
> : On the topic of QEMU help output, it still reads:
> : Copyright (c) 2003-2008 Fabrice Bellard
> :
> : Since the code was last modified in 2009, I feel that should be
> : reflected in some copyright statement.
[...]
> What purpose is this copyright notice?  Is it to notify users of the
> collection copyright (eg, the gluing together of everything)?

From my POV, its main purpose is indicating to the casual user the  
time span the software was developed in (rather than the date of  
compilation).

In my country, there is no "copyright" and I do own the IPR to my  
patches independently of such a notice.
I believe the copyright notice may have more significance in the US  
but IANAL.

Andreas

> In that
> case, the above is fine.  If it is supposed to be for everybody's
> individual contributions, then none of the above are sufficient (or
> required).  However, it likely would be good to include a contributors
> page.  I haven't reviewed all the licenses in all the files in the
> system, but it never hurts to have a file that acknowledges all the
> copyrights in a central place.
>
> Unlike trademarks, you can't say "Copyright by a bunch of folks"
> That's not valid copyright notice, and that's what the "and
> contributors" does....
>
> My recommendation would be to go with the second form.
>
> Warner