FOR APPROVAL: WhizbangApplicationCompany Public License 1.0

David Woolley david at djwhome.demon.co.uk
Thu Nov 16 22:02:23 UTC 2006


> If there was an application that met the conditions above, that 
> incorporated the GPL-licensed works of 50 different copyright holders into 
> the same application, the above could be interpreted as requiring the 
> publication of a copyright notice listing all 50 different holders and 

You are misusing the word publication.  As GPLed code is published code,
it does require the publishing of the full list of copyright holders, but
that may only be in the source code.  What is asked for above is
an appropriate copyright notice, and I would suggest that there is 
ample precedent from commercial software that an adequate notice would
be one that stated that copyright existed, the relevant (range of) 
publication dates, and a procedure for obtaining the full list.  E.g.,
for SCO Open Server, it tells you to run the copyrights command, which
does give page after page of detailed copyright information.

Talking intentions, the intention is to ensure that you know that it
is covered by copyright and it is covered by the GPL and to ensure
that you can find the full copyright ownership if you need it.

> their licenses.  Since the GPL is OSD-conformant (or better phrased, the 
> OSD was carefully designed to allow the GPL to be OSD-conformant), the 
> user interface experience issue you bring up can't be enough on its own to 
> argue against OSD certification.

Even if the GPL required all the individual copyright owners to be
identified in the user interface, it would be, for a typical GUI
program, in the splash screen, not permanently on display.




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