[Savannah-hackers] Re: copyright/license utility

[Aubrey Jaffer]

 | From: Mathieu Roy <address@hidden>
 | Date: 16 Nov 2002 18:52:11 +0100
 | 
 | Aubrey Jaffer <address@hidden> said:
 | 
 | > I am writing a script which discovers copyright and public-domain
 | > notices in source files.  It occurred to me that someone at GNU might
 | > already have done this, since you check software project copyrights.
 | > Do you know of tools for checking copyrights or licenses?
 | 
 | What do you means by "discovering copyright"? 

My "copyrights" program searches through the given files looking for
"copyright", "Copr.", "&#169;", or "©" (followed by years and name of
holder in either order).  It also recognizes the phrase "public
domain".  For each file it reports multiple copyright lines if they
differ; ent.scm, README, and wb.texi are examples of this in the "wb"
listing appended.

I used the term "discovering copyright" because my program does not
rely on the source file being in any special (cooperative) format.  In
addition to scripts, C, Scheme, info, texinfo, postscript, plaintext,
and Makefiles, it correctly extracts copyrights from comment fields in
MIDI and JPEG files.

I might also add an option so that "copyrights" finds any close
matches for the text immediately following a copyright among the
license texts collected on
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html.

                              -=-=-=-=-

cd ~/wb/
cvsfiles ./ | copyrights -
rel.scm:
COPYING:4:Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
schlep.typ:
all.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
db.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
db.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
test2.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
wbsys.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
wbsys.h:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
example.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, 
Inc.
blink.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
blkio.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
del.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
ent.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
ent.scm:751:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, 
Inc..\n")
prev.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
scan.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
stats.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
wbdefs.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
wbcheck.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
test.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
VMSBUILD.COM:1:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, 
Inc.
.cvsignore:
wbtab.scm:2:Copyright 1996, 2000, 2001 Aubrey Jaffer
wbsys.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
make.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
ChangeLog:
handle.scm:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Makefile:1:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
README:44:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
README:91:Copyright (C)  1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000                     
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
ANNOUNCE:
wb.spec:
wb.texi:33:Copyright @copyright{} 1992-2000 Free Software Foundation
wb.texi:61:Copyright (C) 1992-2000 Free Software Foundation
wb.texi:167:Copyright (C)  1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000 @center Free 
Software Foundation, Inc.
blink.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
blink.h:
blkio.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
blkio.h:
del.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
del.h:
ent.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
ent.h:
handle.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 
*/
handle.h:
prev.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
prev.h:
scan.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
scan.h:
stats.c:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. */
stats.h:
wb.info:17:Copyright (C) 1992-2000 Free Software Foundation
wb.info:104:Copyright (C)  1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2000                   
  Free Software Foundation, Inc.
wbdefs.h:2:Copyright (c) 1991, 1992, 1993, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 
*/

Compilation finished at Sat Nov 16 18:41:18