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Copyright changes

Started by LiroyvH, May 29, 2013, 10:31:36 AM

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LiroyvH

Dear valued community,

As you may be aware, there has been debate recently about the copyright line that is used in the SMF code. Although it has taken quite some time, we wanted to be careful that all changes we made would be positive for contributors and wouldn't break the understanding that they had with our organization over their code contributions.

After extensive debate and reviewing with experienced lawyers, we will be making the following changes starting with the 2.1 release:

The copyright lines in the top of the files will change from:
@copyright YEAR Simple Machines
to:
@copyright YEAR Simple Machines and individual contributors
Code contributors will be listed in a special plain text file to make it easy to see. The credits page inside the software will still remain.
The copyright line at the bottom of forums will remain unchanged.

This change will not apply to any of the 2.0 or earlier versions.

The changes we are making will give more credit where it's due and also clearly states that individual code contributors hold copyright to their submitted work while still allowing Simple Machines to use it as part of the Simple Machines Forum software. Simple Machines holds copyright over the collective work that is the Simple Machines Forum (SMF) software.

If you're just a user of our software, none of these changes will have any effect on your use of SMF. If you're a developer, contributor, or working on a fork of SMF, nothing fundamental changes in how you can use the code as long as you make the above changes to any SMF 2.1 code you are using.

We would like to thank the SFLC for their help and guidance in this matter. Also, we want to thank everyone else who contributed advice and worked with us on this change.

Thank you to the community for your patience in this matter. Also, thank you to all the contributors to, and users of, SMF as you help make this community thrive.


Regards,
Simple Machines
Board of Directors
((U + C + I)x(10 − S)) / 20xAx1 / (1 − sin(F / 10))
President/CEO of Simple Machines - Server Manager
Please do not PM for support - anything else is usually OK.

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