6 Nov
2024
6 Nov
'24
2:25 a.m.
On Nov 5, 2024, at 18:58, Warner Losh
<imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
…
These days, most open source authors would
replace the copyright statement with their own for such an extensive rewrite
since the diff was over 2x the size of the original file (another very imperfect
measure). Though the comments remaining identical is troublesome because
they are the parts of the code that are the most creative and subject to the
most freedom while the for loops and such are largely dictated by the problem
or C language and customary style.
This was interesting to me. I’ve been writing various open source for 20+ years and I
think maybe I was given a much stricter rule to follow when I started out and which I’ve
followed since — it may very well be wrong but it’s what I’ve followed.
If I started with some code with a copyright at the top, and I rewrote every line I would
not replace the copyright but add mine to the file. I was told this was the correct action
b/c you aren’t allowed to use the previous code as an aide to writing your new code and
consider it only your own, it’s derivative in that case.
Maybe this is just overly careful, but it’s what I’ve done in all my projects (starting
back in the 90s with NetBSD and on to contributing to many other open source projects over
time).
Thanks,
Chris.