Mestre Lion wrote:
> I had briefly talked to Phil about this, but given the (possible) broad
> consequences, I think it's better to post here for all devs opinion:
>
> i18n was a huge branch that changed almost all files. When adding the
> finishing touches, I stumbled across several issues:
>
> - All file headers (with the GPL2 preamble) are outdated. The FSF
> address has since changed from "59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA
> 02111-1307 USA" to "51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
> 02110-1301, USA". And to prevent this hassle from happening again, FSF
> wisely changed this in its GPL3 preamble to: "If not, see
> <
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>". I fixed this issue only for
> singularity.py, code/singularity.py and code/g.py (and README.txt),
> using the url version, as i think a mass-replace deserves a commit of
> its own, and a broader discussion.
>
> - As for copyright, several years are listed (usually 2005, 2006, 2007,
> 2008, 2009). This poses a problem: should we also add 2012? Should we
> edit all files every year? To prevent this, after a /lot/ of research on
> the legal aspects, I changed those 4 files to 2005 /only/, as for
> copyright laws only the /first release/ is necessary. This prevents a
> lot of noise when editing files in the future, keeping patches small.
Copyright's like 90 years from the death of the author anyway. Update
the files, or not, it won't matter for the next century or so anyway.
> - What about copyright holders? Current scenario is: Ems and Phil and in
> all files, Brian and FM in most, I've added myself only to the 4 above,
> and a there are also a few authors credited individually /in copyright/
> in some individual files (but not in README and/or AUTHORS. Shouldn't
> they?). So, what is the criteria? If a contributor patches a single
> file, with substantial changes, should he add him/her self to that file?
> Should copyright notice be uniform for all files (only ems and phil for
> example), and other credits to README/AUTHORS ? What about
> extensive/project-wise changes (brian, fm, and myself). Do we waive
> copyright for individual files, or be included in all of them, (for
> uniformity's sake), even for files we didn't touch at all? And where to
> draw the line between "some files changed" and "extensive, project-wise
> changes"? Singularity, being in Git and GitHub, will soon experience a
> boom in developers and contributors (at least we hope so), so the
> project needs a policy regarding this.
I'm thinking: for small changes, assign copyright to emh/phil. For
larger changes, you can if you want, but we won't force you. I don't see
any reason to define small/large; this is just to keep the number of
copyright holders at a reasonable size.
We might want a CREDITS.txt file, to give a dedicated space to showing
who made what.
>
> - About license: how about switching to GPL3+? I don't want to sound
> like an FSF fanboy/zealot, but v3 does offer substantial improvements
> over v2. Take a look here:
>
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html and also here:
>
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html . I think that being a
> game, specially a simple one,Tivolization is a real threat: consider the
> many embedded devices and handhelds that offer dozens of simple games,
> usually S/NES-like, with an embedded MAME emulator. So, anyway, if we
> may end up doing a mass replace to fix the problems above, then going
> from 2+ to 3+ has zero-cost (in terms of patch size)
>
> - GLP3 again: .. it also does not require any effort: E:S is already
> (wisely) GPL2 /or later/. So, legally, we don't even /need/ anyone's
> authorization to re-license it as GPL3+. Of course I would never do
> anything without ems's and phil's bless, but at least we don't have to
> hunt down everyone mentioned in all files (trust me, it's a /lot/ of
> people) to do the switch.
I'm not worried about a Tivo-style situation because it is, after all,
just a game, and not even multiplayer, so there would be no motive for
preventing changes to a copy, but if you want to upgrade, go ahead.
>
> Tough issues apart, now to the easy ones:
>
> - Why the file is called "GPL.txt" ? Standard name (by Debian/Fedora
> policy, and basically all FOSS projects) is LICENSE (or COPYING). It is
> also license-agnostic. And, please, let's drop the ".txt". If that was
> meant to make Windows users happy, it is pointless: file uses Unix line
> delimiters (\n) instead of Windows CR+LF. So it will look /bad/ in
> Notepad anyway, regardless of the ".txt"
Go ahead and change to LICENSE
>
> - Same rationale for README.txt. Windows users cannot double-click in
> notepad (ok, they can, but it will look crappy), and Linux users are
> certainly annoyed by the non-standard name. It's README only, period. (I
> mean, no period :P)
This is different, as the file needs to be accessed by Windows users
easily. Change the eol style to Windows, leave it as .txt