Hi all,
When doing some work for a client recently, I developed a patch for Blender.
The client is happy to contribute the code back to Blender, however they are
concerned about attribution.
Currently it seems there are no clear guidelines about how attribution is given
for contributions. My preference, and that of my client, is that detailed
copyright notices should be visible both in the code and in Blender's GUI. This
is not unusual: consider the Linux kernel (e.g. [1]) and the GIMP (e.g. [2-4]),
and the About dialog boxes of gedit[5] and Firefox[6].
Apart from giving contributors credit, detailed copyright notices in the code
would better satisfy the GPL, which states in section 2.a:
a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
I propose that:
1. All future contributions be attributed in modified source files as
"Copyright <year> <author or organistion>", or at the contributor's option, in
another form that conveys the same information.
2. The same copyright information be collected in a place accessible from the
GUI, either in the splash screen itself (perhaps in a tab) or on a web page
linked to from the splash screen.
What do you think?
Cheers,
Alex
--
Alex Fraser
Software Engineer
The Victorian Partnership for Advanced Computing
[1]
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob_plain;f=kernel/cgroup.c
[2] http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/plain/plug-ins/common/polar-coords.c
[3] http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/tree/plug-ins/twain/twain.h
[4] http://git.gnome.org/browse/gimp/tree/libgimp/gimpitemcombobox.c
[5] http://www.pasteall.org/pic/13959
[6] http://www.pasteall.org/pic/13961
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