1 NOTES ON COPYRIGHTS AND LICENSES
5 A "copyright notice" consists of one or a few lines of this format:
6 "Copyright (C) 2006, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc."
8 A "license notice" is a statement of permissions, and is usually much
9 longer, eg the text "GNU Emacs is free software...".
12 Every non-trivial file distributed through the Emacs CVS should be
13 self-explanatory in terms of copyright and license. This includes
14 files that are not distributed in Emacs releases (for example, the
15 admin/ directory), because the whole Emacs CVS is publicly
18 The definition of triviality is a little vague, but a rule of thumb is
19 that any file with less than 15 lines of actual content is trivial. If
20 a file is auto-generated (eg ldefs-boot.el) from another one in the
21 CVS, then it does not really matter about adding a copyright statement
22 to the generated file.
24 The years in the copyright notice should be updated every year (see
25 file "years" in this directory). The PS versions of refcards etc
26 should display copyright notices (an exception to the rule about
27 "generated" files), but these can just display the latest year. The
28 full list of years should be kept in comments in the source file. If
29 these are distributed in CVS, check in a regenerated version when the
30 tex files are updated.
32 Copyright changes should be propagated to any associated repositories
33 (eg Gnus, MH-E), but I think in every case this happens automatically
36 All README (and other such text files) that are non-trivial and were
37 added by Emacs developers need copyright and copying permission
38 statements (see eg INSTALL in the top-level directory).
40 All images files that allow for comments should have copyright and
41 license statements. Whether or not this is possible, the information
42 should be recorded in a README file in each directory with images.
44 When installing a file with an "unusual" license (after checking first
45 it is ok), put a copy of the copyright and license in the file (if
46 possible. It's ok if this makes the file incompatible with its
47 original format, if it can still be used by Emacs), or in a README
48 file in the relevant directory.
50 The vast majority of files are copyright FSF and distributed under the
51 GPL. A few files (mainly related to language and charset support) are
52 copyright AIST alone, or both AIST and FSF. (Contact Kenichi Handa
53 with questions about legal issues in such files.) In all these cases,
54 the copyright years in each file should be updated each year.
56 There are some exceptions to the points in the previous paragraph, and
57 these are listed below for reference, together with any files where
58 the copyright needs to be updated in "unusual" ways.
60 If you find any other such cases, please consult to check they are ok,
61 and note them in this file. This includes missing copyright notices,
62 and "odd" copyright holders. In most cases, individual authors should
63 not appear in copyright statements. Either the copyright has been
64 assigned (check copyright.list) to the FSF (in which case the original
65 author should be removed and the year(s) transferred to the FSF); or
66 else it is possible the file should not be in Emacs at all (please
69 [For reference, most of these points were established via email with
70 rms, 2007/1, "Copyright years".]
73 <top-level>/install-sh
75 - this file is copyright MIT, which is OK. Leave the copyright alone.
78 - update BOTH notices in this file
80 leim/CXTERM-DIC/4Corner.tit, ARRAY30.tit, [CCDOSPY.tit], ECDICT.tit,
81 ETZY.tit, [PY-b5.tit], Punct-b5.tit, Punct.tit, QJ-b5.tit, QJ.tit,
82 [SW.tit, TONEPY.tit,] ZOZY.tit
83 - leave the copyrights alone.
85 leim/MISC-DIC/CTLau-b5.html, CTLau.html, cangjie-table.b5, cangjie-table.cns,
86 [pinyin.map, ziranma.cin]
87 - leave the copyright alone.
89 leim/SKK-DIC/SKK-JISYO.L
91 (the latter is auto-generated from the former). Leave the copyright alone.
94 - this has a copyright Ken Arnold. We are still deciding what should
95 be done here (see below).
97 lib-src/getopt1.c, getopt_int.h
98 - these are from the GNU C library. Leave the copyrights alone.
100 lispref/doclicense.texi
102 - leave the copyright alone in this imported file.
105 - there are also copyrights in the body of the file. Update these too.
107 msdos/is_exec.c, sigaction.c
108 - these files are copyright DJ Delorie. Leave the copyrights alone.
111 - contains numerous copyrights from the GNU C library. Leave them alone.
114 *** These are copyright issues still to be addressed:
117 All README (and other such files) that are non-trivial and were added
118 by Emacs developers need copyright statements and copying permissions
122 All images files that allow for comments should have copyright and
123 license statements added. Whether or not this is possible, the
124 information should be recorded in a README file in each directory with
128 admin/check-doc-strings
129 Author is Martin Buchholz, but no assignment from him on file, and
130 rms has no way to reach him.
131 admin/make-announcement - no copyright
132 admin/nt/makedist.bat - no copyright
133 etc/ms-kermit - no copyright, but ms-7bkermit has one
134 etc/e/eterm-color.ti - no copyright
135 rms: "I think that is not copyrightable under the merger doctrine
136 because the entries are all forced. At least that is the case in the
137 US; I am not sure whether we can rely on that in general."
139 For the above files, mail sent froam rms to Matthew (Martin?) Norwood
140 asking what to do (via Eben Moglen), 2007/1/22 ("Copyright years").
144 I (rgm) think the "Gnus Bugfixing Girls + Boys" copyright should
145 probably be removed, but it may be ok (waiting for rms)
148 etc/orgcard.tex - no Rooke in copyright.list
149 rms will talk with Org mode author about this.
152 etc/sk-refcard.ps, pl-refcard.ps, cs-refcard.ps
153 These refcards need to be regenerated (by those with suitable TeX
154 setups) to get updated copyrights.
157 leim/CXTERM-DIC/CCDOSPY.tit, PY-b5.tit, SW.tit, TONEPY.tit
158 leim/MISC-DIC/pinyin.map, ziranma.cin
159 The copyright and license is stated in the README file, but we may as
160 well copy them into the files themselves (possibly at the expense of
161 making them incompatible with their original formats, but they will
162 still be usable by Emacs). [Kenichi Handa]
165 lib-src/etags.c - no 'k.* arnold' in copyright.list'
166 rms: "That is ok, in principle. I used free code released by Ken
167 Arnold as the starting point. However, it may be that we need to get
168 and insert whatever his license was for his code."
171 lispref/back.texi, elisp-covers.texi, lay-flat.texi,
172 two-volume-cross-refs.txt, two.el
173 - add standard notices to any decided to be non-trivial.
176 lwlib/lwlib-int.h, lwlib.h - no copyright
177 lwlib/Makefile.in, lwlib-utils.c, lwlib.c - copyright Lucid
178 lwlib/lwlib-Xaw.c - copyright Chuck Thompson
179 lwlib/lwlib.c - copyright Lucid, but FSF copyright was added in 2002 -
181 rms: "I asked Matthew Norwood about these, I believe."
184 man/back.texi, trampver.texi
185 - add standard notices to any decided to be non-trivial.
189 - do we need to add COPYING.LIB (because COPYING.DJ refers to it)?
193 - should there be any FSF copyrights at all in here? Some were added
194 in 2005, without licence notices. Was this right?
195 oldXMenu/Makefile.in, Makefile, Imakefile, descrip.mms, insque.c
196 - issues described in mail to rms, 2006/12/17.
197 rms: "I have asked for lawyer's advice about these."
200 src/acldef.h, chpdef.h, gnu.h, ndir.h
201 src/m/mips4.h, news-r6.h, news-risc.h, pmax.h
202 src/s/aix3-2.h, bsd386.h, hpux8.h, hpux9.h, irix4-0.h, irix5-0.h,
203 isc2-2.h, netbsd.h, osf1.h, sol2-3.h, sunos4-0.h, umips.h, usg5-4-2.h
204 - all these (not obviously trivial) files are missing copyrights.
205 rms: "I should talk about these with Matthew Norwood."