[En-Nut-Discussion] RFC: Copyright of trivial code

[Henrik Maier]

Hi all,

Copyright law is indeed tricky as it still differs from country to 
country despite some attempts to standardise it through the Bern 
Convention. Then there are also moral rights and commercial rights. You 
can assign and transfer the commercial rights but still own the moral 
rights.

But most jurisdictions agree that only something of substance can be 
protected. If its trivial, you can write any copyright statement you 
want but still don't have protection.

A basic makefile most certainly won't fullfill that criteria, so any 
copyright claims in it are void anyway.

Then there is the question if the copyright concerns the whole work (= 
Nut/OS), a library (a collection of headers and C files), a module 
(header and C file), or just a particular file. When is something 
considered work? Another area of potentially endless debate.

I suggest to remove any copyright headers from trivial files and leave 
it to lawyers to determine if that trivial file can be protected or not 
or if it can be considered public domain.

For sample files which purpose is to give people a starting point for 
their own application I would include a special header clearly 
specifying that is is sample code which can be re-used without any 
reference to copyright or permissions. But the WARRANTIES disclaimer 
should be in the sample files to protect the author. For example:

  * The following source file constitutes example program code and is
  * intended merely to illustrate useful programming techniques.  The user
  * is responsible for applying the code correctly.
  * Re-use of this code is encouraged and the author does not claim any 
copyright for the following example code.
  *
  * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY ....  AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
  * WARRANTIES, blablahhhh

Cheers

Henrik Maier


On 19/03/2011 4:20 AM, Harald Kipp wrote:
> Hi Bernd,
>
> On 3/18/2011 11:32 AM, Bernd Walter wrote:
>> On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 09:47:00AM +0100, Harald Kipp wrote:
>>> there are several simple files, for which a copyright notice looks
>>> overdone to me, specifically header and make files.
>> You can't disclaim a copyright and you don't need to declare it
>> to have a copyright.
>
> I overlooked, that this differs from place to place, as Nathan explained.
>
>
>> Do you have problems with any specific files?
>
> All Make* files in the first place and simple header files like
> include/net/if_types.h or include/compiler.h.
>
> I already did that in this project
> http://leanloader.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/leanloader/trunk/target/
>
> Perhaps that wasn't a good idea...
>
> Regards,
>
> Harald
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