Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:55:14 -0300 From: "Carlos A. M. dos Santos" <unixmania@gmail.com> To: "Hans Petter Selasky" <hselasky@c2i.net> Cc: "Sam Leffler \(FreeBSD Project\)" <sam@freebsd.org>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org, Alfred Perlstein <alfred@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: (forw) Re: USB4BSD - release candidate 2 - coming to FreeBSD this week. Message-ID: <e71790db0810180355o2e96e612n908faa52be0638e0@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <200810180932.33848.hselasky@c2i.net> References: <20081015173319.GB46393@elvis.mu.org> <200810152124.12637.hselasky@c2i.net> <e71790db0810170534j7ed1987fsccf288a788a9159b@mail.gmail.com> <200810180932.33848.hselasky@c2i.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 4:32 AM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky@c2i.net> wrote: > On Friday 17 October 2008, Carlos A. M. dos Santos wrote: >> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 4:24 PM, Hans Petter Selasky <hselasky@c2i.net> > wrote: >> >> 6. Many files lack a copyright/license (e.g. modules/*). >> > >> > It is BSD licensed like the rest of the code. >> >> International law recognizes implicit copyright, not implicit >> licensing. If you are the author then you are the implicit copyright >> holder, unless you have signed a contract assigning the copyright to >> someone else. So you are the only person legally allowed to add a >> license statement to that code. Somebody else can do it, of course, >> but only with your written permission; otherwise it would be a crime. > > Yes, but the files under modules/* are Makefile. Do Makefiles need a license. > Else I completely agree with you. >From a strictly legal POV even makefiles would need copyright licences if they contained intellectual creation. Most makefiles, however, are simple "this depends on that and is built this way" declarations. Calling them intellectual creations is questionable, so they fall in a grey area. I'd add a licence to the makefiles anyway, at least while they were part of a standalone package or patch set. Once they become integrated to FreeBSD's code base, they can be considered as part of the system, so the project's copyright and license terms will apply. -- cd /usr/ports/sysutils/life make clean
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?e71790db0810180355o2e96e612n908faa52be0638e0>