[Phpmyadmin-devel] license for error reporting server

[Dieter Adriaenssens]

2013/8/19 Mohamed Ashraf <mohamed.ashraf.213 at gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 6:18 PM, Dieter Adriaenssens
> <dieter.adriaenssens at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Mohamed,
>>
>> On the team meeting last week, we discussed the license under which
>> the error reporting server will be published.
>>
>> Because it is based on cakePHP which is licensed under MIT 2.0, we
>> decided to license our additions under MIT 2.0 as well. This way it
>> will be easier to contribute any changes that might be useful for
>> cakePHP upstream (if applicable).
>>
>> In order to keep track of who holds copyright on which files (cakePHP
>> or phpMyAdmin), a copyright notice should be added to each file that
>> was created for phpMyAdmin. For original cakePHP files that are
>> modified, both copyright holders (cakePHP and phpMyAdmin) should be
>> mentioned.
>>
>> Can you do the necessary changes?
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> --
>> Kind regards,
>>
>> Dieter Adriaenssens
>
> Hi Dieter,
>
> so each and every file created should have a copyright notice. Does
> that include generated files such as the schema or the migrations?

I would say yes.
If they are generated by a script, you can probably modify  this
script to add the copyright notice to it.

> Also I would need the actual script you want to be included at the top
> of the file be it ours or has joint authors.

In case it is only us, use the same docblock as the one for the
cakePHP files, but replace all cakePHP stuff with phpMyAdmin.

fe.

/**
 * phpMyAdmin Error reporting server
 * Copyright (c) phpMyAdmin project (http://www.phpmyadmin.net)
 *
 * Licensed under The MIT License
 * For full copyright and license information, please see the LICENSE.txt
 * Redistributions of files must retain the above copyright notice.
 *
 * @copyright     Copyright (c) phpMyAdmin project (http://www.phpmyadmin.net)
 * @link            http://www.phpmyadmin.net
 * @license       http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php MIT License
 */

(remove the since and package, because our fiels were not released as
part of cakePHP)

In case of modifications to a cakePHP file, add a copyright line for
phpMyAdmin and the following notice :

This file was originally released by cakePHP and modified by
phpMyAdmin. You can check the commit log for changes to this file.

> I am also assuming that this is a low priority task and would be done
> in my down time since I donot think this is time sensitive. Once you
> give me the actual copyright notice to include I will start adding
> them to the necessary files as I go.
>
> Also files that are created by Cakephp already have a copyright notice
> should I remove it and replace it with ours that has both authors or
> should I modify their copyright notice or should I place our copyright
> notice after theirs.

See above.

> Furthermore as for the issue of empty but copyrighted files I have
> here the original app controller file as supplied by cakephp [0] and
> here the current state of the file [1]. should this file still be
> under joint copyright. I think this is the only one which has changed
> so radically but there are others that are empty but copyrighted
> however I havent changed them yet

If you didn't change them, leave them as they are.
I would say that a file with only a class definition can hardly be
considered as copyrightable material, so I'm inclined to say to
replace the copyright notice with ours. But it doesn't hurt to just
add our copyright and the notice I mentioned above.

> [0] https://github.com/cakephp/cakephp/blob/master/app/Controller/AppController.php
> [1] https://github.com/phpmyadmin/error-reporting-server/blob/master/app/Controller/AppController.php
>

I hope this helps.


-- 
Kind regards,

Dieter Adriaenssens