CPC version

[Ivan Denisov]

Helmut, I like your CPC version, because it has embedded translations and other stuff.
Your work for collecting fixes and as a developer was the start ground for many discussions here.
However I see, that you also take much from the Center version and it will be hones to add the copyright of Center in your BlackBox assembly.
I do not know, maybe I am asking to much. We can discuss this with other Center members.

[Zinn]

Ivan, personally I don't like copyright and all those stuff, and I don't care them. But the last month I learned it is very important. I had a lot of work about the subsystems removing request from CPC and loose the functions of Casket. I won't have this kind of problem again.

Original I collect all changes which I found around the web. Josef, you (Ivan) and other Center members improved the CPC Edition and built the Center Edition. Most changes I add it to the CPC Edition too but not all. I try to minimize the differences.

I won't loose the right of changing BB and publish it on CPC. How would you like distinguish the two versions currently?

- Helmut

[Ivan Denisov]

I won't loose the right of changing BB and publish it on CPC. How would you like distinguish the two versions currently?

You can not lost any right in this case, because we are working under the BSD 2-clause license.

You also will keep your copyright.

Suggested About with new logo attached.

[Josef Templ]

May be a little off-topic but isn't this discussion also related to the question if and how the BSD license specifies how to re-license modified BSD code.
This is what the center is doing with BB 1.6 changed to 1.7
but still licensed under the BSD 2-clause license.

The question is about the copyright notice in the license text.
Must it be unchanged forever or can it be extended with an additional line as we did for 1.7?

If it must be unchanged, how can 1.7 be licensed then again under BSD?
- By adding a second license file?
- By just including the original unchanged license file?

How is this handled by other projects?
Has anybody seen any comments from lawyers?

- Josef

[cfbsoftware]

The following FAQ might help you find the answers to your questions:

https://opensource.org/faq

The copyright notices are covered by:

Can I strip out the copyrights on Open Source code and put in my own?
Definitely not! This isn't even about Open Source, really: in general, you should not remove a valid copyright notice, no matter what license it specifies. Copyright notices are legal notices; they are also a source of information about the provenance of source code, and if that information is stripped out, recipients of downstream copies have no easy way to rediscover it.

[Josef Templ]

I cannot find any useful information about the question if it is correct to add a line to the
copyright notice in a BSD-2 license.

It seems to me that nobody cares about this question,
so we have to ignore it for now.

Another simple question that has no simple answer is the phrase "All rights reserved."
in a BSD-2 license. What does it mean? Is it required to be put on every line in the copyright notice
or is it 'global'? In the official template it is on a separate line following the one and only copyright line.
If it is global, why is it in the same line as the original ominc copyright notice?
If it must be appended to every copyright line, we should append it also to our copyright line.

- Josef

[cfbsoftware]

OK - I've investigated further and it appears that the correctness of adding Copyright notices is determined by the definition of 'derivative works'. While I wouldn't count on Wikipedia as a substitute for professional legal advice it is good for an overview:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work

Having read that I would not have thought that the bug fixes and minor enhancements included so far would be sufficient to describe 1.7 as a derivative work. To be on the safe side I would recommend just keeping the original Oms copyright notice and including in the documentation somewhere an acknowledgement of all the contributions including the authors' names. I recall Oms doing this is one of there more recent releases.

It also appears that Copyright law varies from country to country. What might not be enforced in one country could well be pursued in another. I would imagine that the BlackBox copyright would be protected by Swiss copyright law.

[Ivan Denisov]

Derivative work should have new copyright. Our derivative work "is lawful, because of a license". So there is no reason to remove Center copyright.

[cfbsoftware]

Again, from Wikipedia:

The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality to be original and thus protected by copyright.

Would a casual observer be able to determine any difference between BlackBox 1.6 and BlacKBox 1.7? I would not have thought so.

[Ivan Denisov]

Again, from Wikipedia:

The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality to be original and thus protected by copyright.

Would a casual observer be able to determine any difference between BlackBox 1.6 and BlacKBox 1.7? I would not have thought so.

Casual observer will not detect difference. However in software this criteria is not working. The visual experience can be the same, but the software is differ.
It supports Unicode now, there was no such a feature in 1.6. This reason is enough to say that our version is "derivative work".
Also there are many other features like extra buttons for navigation in controls properties. New icon and Logo. And so on.

For example "Logo". I am the author of this graphics. I share this intellectual property with Center. I expected that it will be protected. If not, I prefer my copyright be included everywhere. And the same with all contributors. They share fixes and features and we should also protect their rights.