[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > Hi all, > > I'm new dealing with licenses and I've been trying to catch up, however > I need advice. > > Edward M Barlow wrote "conquer", a middle earth multi-player curses > based game, and posted it in USENET at comp.sources.games around 1987 > and 1988. Later Adam Bryant contributing with code and patching the > original sources. > > Recently I managed to contact Ed Barlow and asked him for permission to > relicense conquer as free software. My concerns are around the > contributed code of Adam Bryant who I didn't manage to contact. > Please check the original C source code of conquer v4.11 at [1] and > look that three files (navy.c, sort.c, and trade.c) specially the > latter have a notice like this: > > /*conquer : Copyright (c) 1988 by Ed Barlow.*/ > /* > * The following file "trade.c" was written by Adam Bryant who > * gives all rights to this code to Ed Barlow provided that this > * message remains intact. > */ > > Could the code be relicensed as GPL v.2 or any compatible license with > this notices?
IANAL, but this looks like an effective conveyance of copyright to me. If it is such a conveyance, then Ed Barlow may legally make the file available under any license that he (Ed Barlow) wishes. Insofar as the message is an explanation of copyright providence, I see no problem including it (and being required to preserve it) under GPLv2, BSD, MIT or a number of other licenses. It poses practical problems, I think regardless of license, for people who wish to reuse only portions of the file -- in terms of how they should describe the copyright on the reused portions -- but the chance of that seems low enough to cross that bridge when one comes to it. Michael Poole -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]