Chris wrote: >Although some people may find that any code they write is actually the >property of the company they work for (a lot of contracts are even more >extreme than just code copyrights). This is very common within the IT market >place. > >I believe that all code written should contain a: >copyright 'year[s]' 'person/company' >or >parts copyright 'year[s]' 'person/company' >string. Certainly that's what I understand that the company lawyers said. >(note that if you want the true answer talk to a lawyer) However any >explicit mention of a name etc on code can class as copyright, IE one line >changes that are tagged eg: > GET_HIT(ch) += 100 /* Chris Gilbert, 2001-01-09, up the players hp */ >counts as copyright to me :) There is also an issue of which country you are in. There seems to be a feeling that US law governs the whole world which is completely wrong. In South Africa the law is pretty simple and a rule of "look and feel" is applied. If the program looks and feels like the original, the original creator has the copyright. In other words you can rewrite all the source code with significant changes all around, but if the program looks and feels like the original, the original programmer owns the copyright on the whole thing. Obviously this does not apply to all countries and can not be used as a true measure of legality. Many other issues come into play when I download source code from a server in France, change it in South Africa and then publish it to a server in the UK... Stephen -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | FAQ: http://qsilver.queensu.ca/~fletchra/Circle/list-faq.html | | Archives: http://post.queensu.ca/listserv/wwwarch/circle.html | +---------------------------------------------------------------+
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