[Linux-Biella] presentazione sito Avis

[Paolo Ciarrocchi]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 7:08 PM, Cristiano Deana <cris a deana.it> wrote:
> Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
>
>>>> basta il COPYING o LICENSE nella root del progetto, poi ogni cosa in più
>>>> è solo grasso che cola...
>>> Ho letto documenti ufficiali che non dicono così.
>>
>> Quali?
>> Io faccio riferimento a:
>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.it.html
>
> "Qualunque sia la licenza da usare, la procedura prevede l'aggiunta di
> due elementi ad ogni file sorgente del programma: una nota di copyright
> (per es. "Copyright 1999 Rita Rossi"), e una dichiarazione sulle
> condizioni di copia che dica che il programma è distribuito secondo i
> termini della Licenza Pubblica Generica GNU (o GPL Attenuata)."

Vero, questo significa che _NON_ e' necessario inserire la licenza in
tutti i file ma che e'
consigliato di inserire i due elementi:
Whichever license you plan to use, the process involves adding two
elements to each source file
of your program: a copyright notice (such as "Copyright 1999 Terry
Jones"), and a statement of
copying permission, saying that the program is distributed under the
terms of the GNU General Public License

Questo non corrisponde pero' a quanto fanno molti programmi rilasciati
con licenza GPL,
molti dei quali addirittura presenti sul sito della FSF.

Ho chiesto chiarimenti alla ml dell'OSI, la risposta piu' chiara e' la seguente:
(0)There is a requirement under GPL wording itself to put the header in.
I think SCO was trying to say at one time that because there were no
header they are not bound by GPL but drop this later.

(0.1) Putting the GPL header in every file makes it unambigious that
the file is indeed under GPL.
This can be at times important, especially if you mixed files that are
GPL-ed, and others which are not  in the same directory/package.

(0.2)Practically speaking, putting those lines in is a pain, even if
you use IDE's feature to auto insert it everytime it creates new file.
I sometimes do not put the header in, but say "Distributed under
Generic Public License version X".

(0.3)If I do not see the GPL header, I have to assume that I do not
have the rights to use the file,
unless other indicators, such as COPYING file is present in the package.
In that case, I assume that all files without license header which I
am certain written by the developers,
are distributed under the condition of the COPYING file.

(0.4)As you can see from (0.3), if individual file you GPL-ed but had
not put in the header somehow
get detached from the package, nobody will know that it is GPL-ed and
technically cannot use your GPL-ed file.
That is why it is a good idea to put the GPL-ed Header in (or if you
are me, put some indicator that the file is GPLed)

(1)If you had used GPL software written by somebody else, then you
need the full header.
That is because you are duty-bounded by the authors of the GPL
software you used.
It is the condition of using their software that your software is
GPL-ed, and you indicate your compliance by putting the GPL header in
every file.

(2)If you had written the program from scratch, then since you have
full discretion on what to do as far as copyright is concern,
you technically speaking do not need to put the GPL header in since by
default, the code is unusable by others.
All you have to do then is to tell someone in writing or otherwise,
that they can have the code under GPL.


La teoria dice:
- Licenza nel file COPYING
- nota di copyright e dichiarazione sulle condizioni di copia
nell'header di ogni file

Gestire gli header di ogni file e' decisamente poco pratico, in
mancaza di header si fa quindi riferimento al contenuto del file
COPYING
Questa e' la pratica comune (2) per i programmi scritti da zero.

Ovviamente IANAL (tenete pero' presente che il kernel di Linux _NON_
introduce header in ogni file e questo non e' stato considerato un
problema
dai legali che hanno trattato la faccenda SCO).

> io ho solo copincollato, non me ne vogliate

Ci mancherebbe, e' un argomento molto interessante (per me almeno) e
ogni contributo e' piu' che benvenuto.

Grazie.

Ciao,
-- 
Paolo
http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/