CoCoA » CoCoALib

As an example: my (small!) contribution to Emacs

;;; cal-html.el --- functions for printing HTML calendars

;; Copyright (C) 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007  Free Software Foundation, Inc.

;; Author: Anna M. Bigatti <bigatti@dima.unige.it>
;; Keywords: calendar
;; Human-Keywords: calendar, diary, HTML
;; Created: 23 Aug 2002

I had to sign a contract (for 1$) with FSF

I have just had a quick look at the Wikipedia page about copyright, and it does seem like a good idea to have a signed document saying that copyright has been transferred.

It should also be sufficient to have document which does not give "us" copyright but which does allow "us" to distribute copies as "we" choose (i.e. under whatever conditions we want - typically GPL, but conceivably also a non-open copy).

For contributors who are (PhD) students, we may have to ascertain whether they are the original copyright holders (it could instead belong to the university... especially as some governments seem to encourage universities to be more like businesses).

We need also be careful about (PhD) students on placement: remember how Shell reacted nastily to Laura (regarding work she'd done before ever even going to Shell)!

Any progress here?

I have noticed many files still do not have Abbott and Bigatti as copyright holders; I usually change it when I see it, but have not done a sweep of all files.

I have added Bigatti to all files which had just Abbott as copyright holder.
Anna should now add Abbott to all files where just Bigatti is the copyright holder.

Here is a URL to a page by the FSF about copyright notices to assign to works:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-recommendations.html

• TmpFactorDir
• TmpHilbertDir
• etc?

Write something like:

//   Copyright (c)  2018  John Abbott and Anna M. Bigatti
//   Authors:  2018  Anna M. Bigatti
//             2017  Elisa Palezzato (original code and tests in CoCoA-5 pkg)

I've done most/all files in doc/txt/ and include/CoCoA/ and src/AlgebraicCore/ and src/tests/.
Still to do: src/CoCoA-5 (did Lagorio agree to give us copyright? I guess so), and examples/.

Probably examples is not so important as the copyright message says you're free to do what you like with the file.

Will check in shortly.

I have checked in yesterday's changes... lots of files.
Anna could you do a few spot checks to make sure that the only changes are to the copyright notices? Thanks!

John Abbott wrote:

I have done the example files... I hope no mistakes.
What about ex-BencharkToolkit.C? I have not changed that (copyright belongs to Bruno Simoes)

Again: Anna could you do a couple of spot checks, to make sure I have not bungled anything?

I'm checking them all. OK.
I have added (some) dates also for the original authors. I can imagine that some files will have some further work by us, and it's nice to know when the original author worked on it.

John Abbott wrote:

I think we can close this.
The code by Arri is destined to be removed before too long (and no one is maintaining it).
The code by Simoes is not essential to the working of CoCoALib/CoCoA-5 (and no one is maintaining it).

OK, I agree