check requirements for GPL V3 license fulfilments

[JuergeN]

What do we need to do to fulfil GPL V3 license?
Get everything in place!

[jri]

Requirements are fullfilled in 4.0 release.
A LICENSE file is attached. This is sufficient (according to my knowledge).
This ticket could be closed.

[JuergeN]

How to Apply GPL

1. You should bundle a copy of the GPL v3.0 your source code and executables if your application is also distributed as an executable. You should put an unmodified copy of the GPL in a file named COPYING in the root of your project. This file should be all capitals and easy to find. Do not nest in sub-directories. ( see ​http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt )

2. Apply the notice to all source files. This is important as bits of your project may float around the internet or an user may look at a source file but not look at the root of your project for a license. The notice should be placed at the top of all your source text files (you may have to enclose it in some sort of comments depending on the language being used). As an aside, it would be impossible to apply this to binary files (such as images) since those files are not human readable.

The notice should contain the name of the project, copyright and copyright year(s). Below is a template that you would need to change. Just look for the < > placeholders:

<one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.>

Copyright (C) <year(s)> <name of author or company>

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see <​http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

[JuergeN]

We need to discuss this a little. I cannot estimate the complexity of adding this text block to every module, etc. But if it's not that much or can be dome easily I would highly recommend to do so. Also I could not find the license text file when installing DeepaMehta from source (plus I would like to add a README file to every copy).

[jri]

Also I could not find the license text file when installing DeepaMehta from source

LICENSE.txt is now found at the top-level also if build from source (thanks for the hint!).

plus I would like to add a README file to every copy

The README file is found at top-level as well, for both: binary distribution and when build from source.
Or do you mean something else?

[JuergeN]

Very good! Two more questions then:

1. What effort would it be to add the text (see: https://trac.deepamehta.de/ticket/8#comment:3 ) to the files? How many files are we talking about?
2. Why does the README file have a ".md" extension? (Just curious)

and one suggestion:

I have done some more research. I found a copyright file for ALL the GPL files
on my computer. The filename is "copyright". It simply includes the text from https://trac.deepamehta.de/ticket/8#comment:2. So I would highly suggest to add this to the root directory of deepamehta, too. Here is a final version of the text:

---

DeepaMehta is a platform for collaboration and knowledge management.
Project website: <​http://www.deepamehta.de/>

Copyright (C) 2000-2011 Jörg Richter

This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see < ​http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

---

[JuergeN]

Replying to JuergeN:

Why does the README file have a ".md" extension? (Just curious)

"md" stands for ​markdown - a file format jri likes a lot.

[jri]

The file COPYRIGHT.txt is now enclosed with both, the next binary distribution and when building from source.

Should we close this ticket now?

[JuergeN]

I had a talk with Urs about this. He also recommended to add the GPL header ( see https://trac.deepamehta.de/ticket/8#comment:5 ) to every module and said, that this could perhaps be done automaticly. It's maybe not a must, but as some of the libraries we are using may not be GPL, it's very likely that the GPL will not apply to the whole of DeepaMehta. Therefore, and also because other people might just use parts of DeepaMehta for their own fork, we should consider doing so.

[JuergeN]

Most of the requirements have been implemented. The only aspect that is still missing is comment number 8 above (see Ticket #120). That's something we can still do in the future. So I will close this ticket now.

[jri]

Milestone GPL license fulfilment deleted