changing the php header (license)

[christoph]

Dear Arnulf,

in yesterdays irc-meeting we were discussing if and how the header of each file should or must include the license text.

Most participants favored a link to the license text, that would be inlcuded in the header in phpDoc style:

/

• $Id: class_kml_point.php 1948 2008-01-03 16:35:29Z christoph $ *
• @link http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/class_kml_point.php
• @copyright 2002 CCGIS
• @license ​http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

*/

Should a link in the header point to a local file or to an URL (Marc suggested the URL of the original GPL v3). Both links should also be possible.

Finally everyone wanted to hear the opinion of an expert (unanimous: Arnulf), whether there are legal implications that need to be respected.

It would be great if you could comment on that issue.

Cheers, Michael

======= Hallo Arnulf,

wir hatten gestern im IRC-Chat eine Diskussion, darüber wie und ob im Header jedes Files der License-Text stehen soll bzw. muss.

Die meisten waren der Meinung, dass ein Link zu dem Text der Lizenz ausreichen sollte. Der Link würde im phpDoc-Stil in den Header eingebaut (aus Mail von Christoph) etwa so:

/

• $Id: class_kml_point.php 1948 2008-01-03 16:35:29Z christoph $ *
• @link http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/class_kml_point.php
• @copyright 2002 CCGIS
• @license ​http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

*/

Dann tauchte die Frage auf, ob der Link zu einem lokalen Lizenz-File zeigen sollte, oder zu einer URL (Marc schlug den Link zur Original-GPL v3 vor). Evtl. wäre ja auch beides möglich.

Letztendlich wollten alle noch die Meinung eines Experten (einstimmig: Arnulf) hören, ob es da noch Legales zu beachten gilt und wenn ja, was.

Es wäre gut deine Ansicht zu hören.

Viele Grüße, Michael

-- ----------------------------------------------------------- Michael Schulz mschulz@… in medias res Gesellschaft für Informationstechnologie mbH In den Weihermatten 66 79108 Freiburg Tel +49 (0)761 556959-5 Fax +49 (0)761 556959-6 ​http://www.webgis.de / ​http://www.zopecms.de ----------------------------------------------------------- _ Mapbender_dev mailing list Mapbender_dev@… ​http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapbender_dev

[christoph]

We stick to GPLv2 (and later). Before changing the headers in the scripts, we need to hand the copyright over to OSGeo (arnulf's initiative is needed...or shall christoph send a motion to dev first? We can't make it in 2.5, so I labeled it Mapbender 3.0 which just indicates a later version).

/

• @version $Id: class_kml_point.php 1948 2008-01-03 16:35:29Z christoph $
• @link http://www.mapbender.org/index.php/class_kml_point.php
• @copyright 2002 CCGIS
• @license ​http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
• This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
• it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
• the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
• any later version.
• This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
• but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
• MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
• GNU General Public License for more details.
• You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
• along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
• Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. */

[astrid_emde]

• what is the actual status? Any news on this topic?

[arnulf]

Currently OSGeo requires the license text (in our case GNU GPL) to appear in all code headers in at least the short form. There has been some discussion to reduce this to a URL but that was not resolved so as it stands we still need to carry the text with us.

It is OK to reduce the text to a one liner that points to a local license text or too the web URL if the corresponding code block is also just one line. As soon as the code is more than a few lines of code the agreed license header should be included.

I close this ticket and open another one that addresses the Copyright transfer to OSGeo.