Re: [cross-project-issues-dev] Copyrights and org.eclipse.license

[David M Williams <david_williams@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Ed, 

Not sure ... of the answer, or what
you are asking, but will answer anyway, and maybe I'll get lucky :) 

As with "license" (SUA) text,
there are actually two sources ... one in property files, and one in repository
metadata (in content.jar/xml). Since that report mentions "repo"
at the top, believe its looking at repository data. 

Whereas in Eclipse SDK "about"
it's probably coming from property file. 

If I recall, from top of my head, in
most cases in "Eclipse UI", there are few (or no?) places to
see the copyright as it appears in repository -- for bundles --  (perhaps
in runtime targets -- not sure) ... so the report is probably not that
useful -- for bundles ... but, features can display their "copyright"
before you install something ... and that comes from content.xml/jar file.
But, once installed, it comes from properties file. I think (again, depending
on my poor memory) the one in property files "comes from" what's
defined for plugin.xml, but the one in metadata comes from an OSGi header
in bundle ... that few people use. 

= = == = = = = = 

Christian, 

I'm no lawyer :) but you are probably
correct they'd find it a "valid" copyright statement.

... I have a question. Why does the word „Copyright“ has to be at the beginning and why does it make a difference if it is not ?

org.eclipse.riena.build.feature.core.sdk.e4.feature.group   6.0.0.v20140506_6_0_0_M7b
 ******************************************************************************* * Copyright (c) 2007 - 2013 compeople AG and others. * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html * * Contributors: * compeople AG - initial API and implementation *******************************************************************************


But, I am a human, and can definitively say it does not look pretty! :)

On the one hand, the report is doing you a favor since such lines often indicate an "end of line" or "extra" continuation character got added. That is, doubt you intended to have so many asterisks at the beginning of your copyright statement. Did you?
And on the other hand, I think I'm just looking for something that approaches the Eclipse Foundation's  "standard" display ... such as see http://www.eclipse.org/legal/guidetolegaldoc.php section 4.3, Features Licenses and Feature Update Licenses. I other words, I think best if we all had a consistent, professional look to such "copyright" statements (at the bottom of that figure). Does yours look ok, there, or do you see the string of asterisks?

= = = = = =

All, these reports are intended to help you. They are not perfect. Improvements welcome. And if you don't find them useful, you can ignore them. Well, except for a few cases. We'll soon start to "fail builds" if "legal files" missing, etc. but doubt we ever would "fail" for "indeterminate" cases of copyright's ... but ... might, someday, not for June, if missing completely.  

Thanks,






From:        Ed Willink <ed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To:        Cross project issues <cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
Date:        05/08/2014 08:12 AM
Subject:        [cross-project-issues-dev] Copyrights and org.eclipse.license
Sent by:        cross-project-issues-dev-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxx

---

Hi David

While checking http://build.eclipse.org/simrel/luna/reporeports/reports/copyrights.html, I see that my plugins are reported as

"Indeterminant: feature's copyright text contains the word 'copyright' but not at beginning:"

which seems to be the same story as Hudson complaining that %copyright is undefined when re-using org.eclipse.license.

However when I check the copyrights in Eclipse SDK Installation Details|Features it seems that something has done a good job of deducing the copyright as:

(c) Copyright Eclipse contributors and others. 2003, 2014.  All rights reserved.

Visit https://projects.eclipse.org/projects/modeling.mdt.ocl

so I was impressed and ignored the Hudson warnings.

If there is clever code providing the copyright, why doesn't your report find it?

Any idea where the clever code is?

   Regards

       Ed Willink_______________________________________________
cross-project-issues-dev mailing list
cross-project-issues-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/cross-project-issues-dev