I have received some code that is copyright someone else, and distributed under GNU general public license - actually, will-be-distributed, since this is a pre-release version as of now. I am substantially rewriting some functions, substituting in much of my already-written code to change the inner workings.
I’ve read over some of the GNU material here, but am still not sure exactly what text should be placed in each file header. Here’s what I’m including as of now:
But this doesn’t seem to attribute any intellectual ownership to me, particularly if my changes are incorporated into the rest of the code base for wider distribution. What do you all do in similar circumstances? Any thoughts/suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
You own the copyright for any code that you contributed, and the original author owns the copyright for his. The difficult area is what about code that was originally his but that you modified? The consensus seems to be that you would own that code as well. If you were to distribute your modifications, you would need to release your code under the GPL also as a derived work, so the point is mostly moot.
Personally, in the headers I would just list your name next to the original author’s. Anybody interested in exactly who contributed what can take a look at the patch history or version control logs.
Thanks for that advice - I’m mostly concerned about the released code, with my contributions, but not getting attribution. So here’s what I’ll put in, and you’re right, if someone wants to know more, then they can consult the individual authors (the code is accompanying a textbook). If my changes become more extensive, then at that point I’ll bring this issue up again with those guys.