[Rd] copyright issues when package maintainer changes

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Whit Armstrong wrote:

> I will be taking over as maintainer of the its package from Giles Heywood.
> The code was originally written while he was working at Commerzbank.  I have
> added the header below to the top of the R source file to indicate the
> changes in the copyrights for the code.  The package was originally released
> under GPL2.  I have no experience with copyright issues, and would
> appreciate it if someone who does would kindly indicate whether the header
> below is correct and conforms with normal practice.

Well, GPL2 is a licence, not a copyright.  I don't know what country you 
are in, whereas Giles was in the UK -- copyright issues are somewhat 
country-specific.

However, two recommendations:

1) only give the year of the changes.  They can overlap.
2) only add your copyright statement to files you actually change
(and not just change by adding a copyright statement but adding something 
with intellectual content).

This is all untested waters and let's hope it remains that way!

> Thanks in advance,
> Whit Armstrong
> 
> 
> <header in R source file itspkg.r>
> #    itspkg.r: a time series library in R
> #    Copyright (C) 2003 to June 2004 Commerzbank Securities
> #    Copyright (C) June 2004 to present Whit Armstrong
> #
> #    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> #    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> #    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
> #    (at your option) any later version.
> #
> #    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> #    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> #    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
> #    GNU General Public License for more details.
> #
> #    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> #    along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
> #    Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307
> USA
> </header in R source file itspkg.r>

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595