[Pcmanfm-develop] pcmanfm copyright and licencing (was: Re: [Lubuntu-desktop] Call for review: PCManFM is almost ready for a new release. )

[Jonathan M. <jma...@fa...>]

>>>> (4) One has a rather different copyright, and a license
>>>> statement that needs fixing:

>>>>   src/gseal-gtk-compat.h: LGPL (with incorrect FSF address)

 
On 06/23/2011 09:27 AM, PCMan wrote:

> Is it possible to make it GPL? I forgot who added this file.


Only its authors can change the licence terms it is released under.
They seem to be would be:

 *  Copyright © 2009 Thomas H.P. Andersen <ph...@gm...>,
 *              2009 Javier Jardón <jj...@gn...>

Do we know these guys?  I think it will be easier to just change
debian/copyright.  Or is there a legal issue with mixing LGPL and GPL
code in one binary??  I don't think there is...

>> Adding a copyright to autogen.sh is something PCMan would need to
>> do, since he wrote it (I presume).


> I forgot who wrote it, but IIRC, Marty Jack did it long time ago.


Does the pcmanfm version control system have history info going back far
enough to find out who first uploaded it?  The autogen.sh in the pcmanfm
Lucid package is dated 2008-09-05 and is completely different, so it
doesn't seem to have been *that* long ago that the newer one was added
... ah, here we go:

> commit 842a30fd8dc6a336e800dbe35428c7edddb4d7d7
> Author: Hong Jen Yee (PCMan) <pcm...@gm...>
> Date:   Sun Aug 9 13:47:04 2009 +0000
> 
>     Apply the same autogen.sh script used by lxde.


So this code has been in pcmanfm for less than two years.

>> I do not know how to fix the lack of copyright and licence in
>> xml-purge.c, because I have no idea who wrote it.  If PCman did,
>> then he can add a licence and copyright notice to it, too.


> I did it long time ago.


Cool!  So this one, we can easily fix :)  Please add a licence and
copyright statement to it; I'd suggest the same licence the rest of the
pcmanfm code has, GPLv2 or later, but it's your code, so it is your
decision how you licence it!

If you can also update Copyright statements for your files to be
2009-2011 rather than just 2009, that would be good too.

Hmm, I found a few more files with possibly missing info:

src/gtk/exo/exo-marshal.c: *No copyright* UNKNOWN
src/gtk/exo/exo-marshal.h: *No copyright* UNKNOWN
src/gtk/exo/test.c: *No copyright* UNKNOWN
src/tests/test-fm-path.c: *No copyright* UNKNOWN
src/udisks/udisks-device.h: *No copyright* GENERATED FILE
src/udisks/udisks.h: *No copyright* GENERATED FILE

On the plus side, I'm not hearing any "major big bug" reports from
anyone testing pcmanfm -- so either not enough people are testing it, or
else it is in reasonably good shape for release :)

Can we get copyright/licence info fixed up wherever we can, and then
(unless we have major bugs to fix) generate a pcmanfm release tarball?
And a libfm one too?

Jonathan