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  • Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
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Author Topic: Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?  (Read 345 times)

JoeMurray

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Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
November 11, 2014, 05:43:12 am
When we override a core file in an extension, we've been leaving in the (c) CiviCRM LLC, even though we are changing parts of it. Now as we upgrade extensions, we're also changing the years of the copyright to include this year. Is this the right way to go about things? Should we be putting in our name along with CiviCRM LLC?

Note that this has nothing to do with the license, it's just a question about the copyright.
« Last Edit: November 11, 2014, 06:58:36 am by JoeMurray »
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mathieu

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Re: Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
November 11, 2014, 07:52:54 am
I'm not an expert by any means on copyright issues, but my interpretation is that you have two options:

1- you can copyright your own code/contributions as (C) CiviCRM LLC, even if CiviCRM LLC did not write it. While CiviCRM LLC does not encourage this (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong), the Free Software Foundation does encourage developers to copyright code as (C) FSF, since this way the FSF can defend you if there are copyright issues. It also means that there is a sole "person" who owns the code, and they can choose to relicense it if necessary (license upgrades, for example). It also makes it easier to deal with code if someone abandons it and others want to takeover maintenance.

2- you can add multiple (C) mentions in your code, as multiple people have contributed code, and keep the code in a SCM/git to track who contributed what. I think this is probably the most common practice. However, it also means that all contributors must agree if ever the code is relicensed, and sometimes getting such consent can be really hard (contributors may be unavailable, deceased, etc). Although presumably, in your case you would put (C) JMA inc. I'm not sure even for Canada, if an individual can waive their copyright away. For employers doing Free Software, it's usually more common to (C) as GPL/AGPL, and give unlimited/unrestricted permission to the employer to re-use the code (as part of the work contract).
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JoeMurray

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Re: Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
November 11, 2014, 12:29:32 pm
I like the concerns about simplicity of future maintajnence and relicensing in 1.

But I'm curious about a few points in 2: that one could assign copyright to a license, and that FSF likes having copyright assigned to them,. Very cool.

You're right that Canada respects the moral rights associated with authorship more that the US -http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights - which explains some of the odd looking to me IP provisions in contracts I've seen coming from some US clients.
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mathieu

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Re: Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
November 11, 2014, 01:03:35 pm
Upon further reading, my interpretation in #1 about the FSF might not be correct. Here are two references for further reading:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.en.html
https://www.gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Copyright-Papers.html

The FSF refers mostly to "packages part of GNU" (which is kind of vague).
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JoeMurray

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Re: Proper (c) copyright for overridden files?
November 11, 2014, 04:10:39 pm
So the upshot is that we should just put in CiviCRM to keep things simple, or if we are keeping copyright for the rest of the extension code we could also add our name.

Thanks, Mathieu.
Co-author of Using CiviCRM https://www.packtpub.com/using-civicrm/book
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