[hpsdr] Copyright Comments for Developers

[Jeremy McDermond]

Just a nitpicky comment for developers after seeing some recent SVN commits.

If you are adding a new file to a project, likePowerSDR, that you have completely authored yourself, the line:

Copyright (C) 2004-2012  FlexRadio Systems

Should not appear in the file header.  It should instead be replaced by something like:

Copyright (C) 2012  Doug Wigley

Flex does not own the copyright on anything that OpenHPSDR members write, and changing the copyright statements makes this clear.  This is only for new files where you are the sole author.

If you are *not* the sole author, but are merely modifying Flex's code, you still probably own your modifications.  You should mark the fact that you have made modifications to the file accordingly by adding, rather than substituting your copyright line.  For example the line:

Copyright (C) 2004-2012  FlexRadio Systems

would become:

Copyright (C) 2004-2012  FlexRadio Systems
Copyright (C) 2012  Doug Wigley

And every author that worked on the file should have a copyright line.  So, if I added some code after Doug, it would become:

Copyright (C) 2004-2012  FlexRadio Systems
Copyright (C) 2012  Doug Wigley
Copyright (C) 2013 Jeremy McDermond

Doing things like this should give individual authors better authority to pursue violations of the GPL if necessary.

--
Jeremy McDermond (NH6Z)
Xenotropic Systems
mcdermj at xenotropic.com