Copyright clause

[krzychupez]

Could you add copyright clause to meet Apache License 2.0 requirements?
I mean Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner] clause with informations.
Leaving it in https://github.com/java-native-access/jna/blob/master/LICENSE would be a proper place.

[matthiasblaesing]

Why do you think any change is necessary? I don't see such an indication in the license, so please point out why you think otherwise.

[dblock]

IANAL, so I am not sure whether it's a requirement to have copyright per APLv2, but I do think it would be good to clarify copyright for the project. We have different copyrights in different files (some are Copyright Timothy Wall, etc.).

I propose "Copyright Timothy Wall and Project Contributors".
The year is not necessary.

[matthiasblaesing]

Quite frankly: Without a very good reason I would not change anything. How should you spell it clearer?

Any list of names you come up with will miss some and will also raise the question whether or not libffi authors should be named.

[dblock]

@matthiasblaesing thank you - I meant to say the reason is "copyright for a project should exist". Right now we don't say what the copyright for the project is anywhere as far as I can see except in various file headers, and these have different copyright labels depending on where you look.

The project was created by @twall, so the original copyright would be him, and "and contributors" automatically grants copyright to the sum of people who have contributed to project, which is intentionally very broad so no one person or group of people can make any claims. I also think "Copyright JNA Project Contributors" could be good.

[dbwiddis]

My 2c (or other fractions of currency), and IANAL but have spent way too much time thinking about this:

1. Copyrights expire in various jurisdictions and are going to be based on the original date. Copyrighting the whole project with a single year shortens the copyright expiration date to the entire project's inception date, which shortens the length available by individual file copyright dates, which we use. This may or may not be desirable, but it's probably mostly irrelevant given the length of expirations. A copyright with a year range isn't really accurate/legal but is a helpful summary of individual file copyrights which are the binding legal requirement.

2. Copyright statements aren't required by the AL2.0 as stated by the OP. The only requirement is the LICENSE file which must be included, and when it also contains Copyright statements, that creates the requirement to copy it and (optionally) add to it.

3. Copyrights do not seem to be required by LGPL 2.1, in the LICENSE file for the originating author(s), however:

   • A copyright line is required on each individual file
   • Any derivative work which chooses the LGPL license option must "appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice" which places library consumers in an awkward position of having to choose how to appropriately recognize the smattering of individual copyright holders for each individual file, probably doing something like "JNA contributors" anyway. Providing such a summary in the LICENSE file allows some conformity.

So I think that a statement "Copyright <inception year> JNA Project Contributors" in the LICENSE file, and retaining individual names in the source files, is appropriate.