Re: Run grand-replace to update copyright

[Graham Percival]

On Sun, Jan 05, 2014 at 09:37:30AM +0100, Werner LEMBERG wrote:
> 
> > The purpose of listing the year is to give an indication of when the
> > copyright will expire.
> 
> AFAIK, this is not correct.  We have to make a distinction between
> singular files and files that a part of a package.  What matters for
> us is the *package* copyright.

I do not believe that there is a notion of "package" copyright in
most countries' laws.  But at this point, I'd like to propose a
distinction between (at least) two questions:

- does the GNU maintainers' guide make suggestions that are
  founded in good legal understanding?

- does lilypond follow the GNU maintainers' guide?

I am reasonably confident that GNU organization consulted with
lawyers as necessary to produce a good set of guidelines.
Admittely the focus would likely be on US copyright law, but I'm
still confident that GNU considered the international situation as
well.  However, it is always possible that somebody made a
mistake, or that the guide is difficult to understand.  In such
case, I suggest contacting GNU directly.

I think the second question is of more immediate concern for
lilypond.  If we don't follow the legal guidelines proposed by
GNU, then we're in a much weaker position if any problems occur.

> If this silent agreement gets ever violated, we have to follow
> standard FSF procedures (since lilypond is an official GNU package),
> asking all contributors to sign copyright assignments to the FSF,
> which would be extremely tedious...

Official GNU packages are not required to sign copyright to the
FSF (that's in the guidelines), but they are encouraged to do so.

- Graham