Hello,
I'm developing a website's engine which is based on PHP4 and MySQL which I have licensed under the GNU GPL Version 2. I currently use this note:
----- snip: ----- Foobar-Program v1.2.3 © 2003 - 2004 by MyDomain.org. All Rights Reserved.
Website engine's code is © copyleft by Foobar. Foobar is a free software released under the GNU GPL v2
----- snap: -----
Is this fine?Or shall I better rewrite the first line to my name and not to my domain?
Roland
On Sat, 23 Oct 2004, Roland [iso-8859-15] Häder wrote:
Hello,
I'm developing a website's engine which is based on PHP4 and MySQL which I have licensed under the GNU GPL Version 2. I currently use this note:
----- snip: ----- Foobar-Program v1.2.3 © 2003 - 2004 by MyDomain.org. All Rights Reserved.
Website engine's code is © copyleft by Foobar. Foobar is a free software released under the GNU GPL v2
----- snap: -----
Is this fine?Or shall I better rewrite the first line to my name and not to my domain?
No, it's not fine.
1. A legal entity (_juristische Person_) such as an individual, a company, a university or a publisher can hold a copyright, but I don't think a domain can. Even if it could, I don't think it would be a good idea to make it the copyright holder, because its name is more likely to change than that of a person, etc.
2. The clause "All Rights Reserved" violates both the letter and the spirit of the GPL.
3. Years should be separated by commas, not dashes. A proper copyright notice looks like this: Copyright (C) 2003, 2004 John W. Smith It's best not to use the copyright symbol, because it may not be representable on all terminals.
The text of the GPL includes instructions on how to use it for your software, including what notices you should put in your source files.
Laurence Finston GNU 3DLDF maintainer
No, it's not fine.
- A legal entity (_juristische Person_) such as an
individual, a company, a university or a publisher can hold a copyright, but I don't think a domain can. Even if it could, I don't think it would be a good idea to make it the copyright holder, because its name is more likely to change than that of a person, etc.
- The clause "All Rights Reserved" violates both the letter
and the spirit of the GPL.
- Years should be separated by commas, not dashes.
A proper copyright notice looks like this: Copyright (C) 2003, 2004 John W. Smith It's best not to use the copyright symbol, because it may not be representable on all terminals.
The text of the GPL includes instructions on how to use it for your software, including what notices you should put in your source files.
Laurence Finston GNU 3DLDF maintainer
As the website http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html said I may use this long text:
----- Snip: ----- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA ----- Snap: -----
But I just need a small footer note for my website's engine and not a text in "a real" program (like you can compile with GNU C Compiler). So I use this text instead:
----- Snip: ----- 1. Line: Foobar v1.2.3 Copyright (c) 2003, 2004 by Roland Häder
2. Line: This website's engine is free software which is released under the GNU GPL either version 2 of the License. ----- Snap: -----
This is much shorter and will not take so much important space and traffic. Or shall my visitor see just 30% of my website's text and the last 70% is for the (c) note?
Hmmmm, interesting thing to discuss. :-)
Regards, Roland Haeder
But I just need a small footer note for my website's engine and not a text in "a real" program (like you can compile with GNU C Compiler). So I use this text instead:
----- Snip: -----
Line: Foobar v1.2.3 Copyright (c) 2003, 2004 by Roland Häder
Line: This website's engine is free software which is released under
the GNU GPL either version 2 of the License. ----- Snap: -----
You'll need the rest of the sentence because you've left the "either" clause hanging.
This is much shorter and will not take so much important space and traffic. Or shall my visitor see just 30% of my website's text and the last 70% is for the (c) note?
I don't quite understand what your engine is and how you're using it on your website. If you're just making it possible for visitors to your website to click on something to use it, I don't see why you need to include a copyright notice for it. It wouldn't do any harm, though. On the other hand, it may be safer to do so, if it's possible for people to download your engine in a usable form from your website, even if it's not your intention to distribute it in this way. If you are distributing it, then you should have a complete copyright notice in your source code, whatever it is.
Laurence