[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #6663: Wordpress source files do not correctly mark themselves as GPL

[WordPress Trac]

#6663: Wordpress source files do not correctly mark themselves as GPL
-------------------------+------------------------
 Reporter:  mattlgnu     |       Owner:  anonymous
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  closed
 Priority:  lowest       |   Milestone:  3.1
Component:  General      |     Version:
 Severity:  trivial      |  Resolution:  fixed
 Keywords:  needs-patch  |
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Comment (by hakre):

 Replying to [comment:21 filosofo]:
 >  1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source
 code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and
 appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and
 disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this
 License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients
 of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
 >
 >  You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
 you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
 > That's section one of GPL 2.  Why would we take "each copy" of the
 source to mean ''each individual file'' as opposed to ''each
 distribution''?

 Well from what I've learned it's possible to have a central location for
 the whole package (“single COPYRIGHT file” method) for notice preservation
 requirements, instead of in each file (“file-by-file” method). So strictly
 spoken, there seems no must to add notices to each file. As for
 preservation of notices be it in individual files or in form of a central
 registry, I have no specific information how the wordpress.org project has
 made up it's mind about that. I think it's somehow in the progress as in
 #16269 but I don't want to stress  words too much here, so that just as an
 assumption that things are taken care of.

 Generally I know that most core devs are in favor of not adding legal
 comments to files, but I think the topic is about more then just I prefer
 red over blue. At least I'm still learning about the legal comments /
 notice preservation details.

 The requirements of the GPL you referred to above are for the time of
 fork, as forking is first of all making verbatim copies prior to modifying
 them.

 I like to highlight a part from 1. and then look into the code-base:

 > conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
 copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices
 that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty

 At [http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/readme.html?rev=3 the
 time of fork the coypright notice has been] (text version):

 {{{
  Copyright notes:

    b2 is (c) 2001, 2002 Michel Valdrighi - m at tidakada.com -
 http://tidakada.com

  Wherever third party code has been used, credit has been given in the
 code's comments.
  b2 is released under the GPL (see license.txt).}}}
 }}}

 (Next to the copyright notice, I saw this requirement: {{{requirements:
 [...] ...and a link to http://cafelog.com on your site.}}} [''1''] )

 As for ''"conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
 appropriate copyright notice"'' I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds like, that
 at least the existing coypright statement should be kept intact. That's
 the (whole) one in 3.0.5 AFAIK:

 {{{
  License

  WordPress is free software, and is released under the terms of the GPL
 version 2 or (at your option) any later version. See license.txt.
 }}}

 The term Copyright got lost in the go,
 [http://codex.wordpress.org/User:Hakre/Core/Wordpress_Copyright#History_of_the_Copyright_Statement
 more details]. On this overall "copyright" topic there has not been much
 committer feedback so far which makes it indifferent to discuss about.

 The [http://core.trac.wordpress.org/browser/trunk/license.txt?rev=3
 disclaimer of warranty was always part of license.txt] and there never
 existed a prominent notice regarding it. I do not know if it has any
 license implications to not make the disclaimer of warranty "more"
 visible. At least, technically, there was a notice pointing to license.txt
 which contained the disclaimer and it has been preserved.

 Probably this all is perfectly in order for wordpress.org. The removal of
 the copyright statement might have all been done in accordance with the
 original copyright holder and individually they contracted this to be not
 under copyright or whatever any longer. It's just not documented or at
 least I don't know where it's documented so I can not really say. My
 questions regarding this are not satisfactory answered so far.

 What I know is that for everybody else, the terms of the license still
 apply, so users would benefit from clarification in all these points.

 What does "conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an
 appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty" mean for the
 WordPress package for example?

 Where and how to keep track of changes someone's does when modifying the
 package?

 Which versions of WordPress can be forked w/o violating a contributors
 requirements?

 Probably such and related is something WP.org can find answers to with
 help of some lawyers.


 ----

 [''1''] This might somehow conflict meanings, as the GNU GPL terms
 shipping with that release state, that it does not cover the output of a
 program. So this is an additional restriction by the copyright holder. I
 think that is
 [https://encrypted.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=GPL+and+attribution&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
 called attribution]. I can not say if the one wish of the copyright owner
 supersedes the other or both work well together. This is an additional
 discussion, I don't want to do here.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6663#comment:25>
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