Rcpp: Clarifying the meaning of GPL?
In my view what has happened is not much different from a situation where I place my name as co-author on a research paper that you have created, without your permission, after making a few small edits that you may not agree with. Furthermore, if you complain I simply present the results (at conferences) as my own without mentioning your name. Is this just a dispute between implementers?
Stavros Macrakis wrote:
On Wed, Dec 23, 2009 at 12:27 AM, Dominick Samperi
<djsamperi at earthlink.net <mailto:djsamperi at earthlink.net>> wrote:
Stavros Macrakis wrote:
That said, as a matter of courtesy and clarity, I'd think that
a fork should use a different name.
Yes, the point is that this is not a legal or technical matter, it
is a matter of professional courtesy.
I take this as one vote for the name change.
The naming and maintenance history of this package (or these packages:
Rcpp and RcppTemplate) appears to be complicated, and I have no
interest in becoming an arbitrator or voter in what is a dispute
between you and other implementers.
On US copyright law, this should not be confused with "copyright"
notices that appear in GPL
source code. Remember that these are really "copyleft" notices,
and copyleft is designed to
protect the rights of copiers, not original contributors.
The copyright notice is a correct and legally valid copyright notice.
The GPL (copyleft) is the copyright *license*. Like all licenses, it
defines the relationship between authors and copiers. The GPL
explicitly avoided the so-called "obnoxious BSD advertising clause",
which has requirements about giving credit.
-s