kicad-developers team mailing list archive

[Simon Richter <Simon.Richter@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

On 28.06.2017 19:40, Wayne Stambaugh wrote:

> "KiCad Developers" should probably be changed to "KiCad" as in the
> project.  They have been used interchangeably in the past so my
> motivation to change them would be low.

That is still not a legal entity.

> That is the point of the KiCad project copyright.  Minor changes do not
> change the original copyright holder.  The only time you should add your
> name to the copyright is if you rewrite most of the underlying code.

No, any contribution that is not "minor" creates a copyright claim. The
copyright line with the name documents this claim.

> We probably shouldn't be updating the individual
> copyright holder dates.

If the copyright statements are to reflect the actual legal situation,
then yes, we should, because the copyright is held by the author, not
the project.

Basically, KiCad is a collection of individual contributions that have
been licensed by the respective authors to be combined into a whole
under the terms of the GPL.

>> IIRC the "(C)" is also not needed here, because we already have the word
>> "Copyright", which can only be abbreviated by using the © sign, not
>> ASCII art of it. Also, the list of years should not have ranges IIRC.

> This is semantics.  I don't think it's worth changing every source file
> to adhere to this.

Indeed, because the current situation is acceptable; the "(C)" simply
does nothing, and the list of years is relevant mostly for tracking
expiry of copyright, which is irrelevant since Walt Disney copied
Steamboat Willie.

   Simon

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