Re: GPL version 1, and "Copyright (c) ...."

[David Coe <davidc@debian.org>]

tb@becket.net (Thomas Bushnell, BSG) writes:

> Is that the actual text of the file?
> 
> If so, it seems to assert copyright, but doesn't grant any license.
> We should not be distributing it.

Yes, that's the actual text, but I think it was an upstream
[non]editing error...

Here's the relevant chunk of that file (tree-w32/oobr.rc).  It's for a
platform we don't build on (win32), and is written in a programming
language I don't recognize (indented two spaces here, but otherwise
unchanged):


  IDD_ABOUT DIALOGEX 40, 24, 186, 94
  STYLE DS_MODALFRAME | WS_POPUP | WS_CAPTION | WS_SYSMENU
  CAPTION "About OO Browser"
  FONT 8, "MS Sans Serif"
  BEGIN
      DEFPUSHBUTTON   "OK",IDOK,129,7,50,14
      ICON            IDI_OOBR,IDC_STATIC,7,7,20,20
      CTEXT           "OO Browser Graphical Viewer\n\nCopyright (c) ....\n\nMore legal stuff, stuff, stuff and stuff....",
                      IDC_STATIC,7,33,172,54,0,WS_EX_STATICEDGE
  END


That is the *only* file in the "tree-w32" subdirectory that mentions
the words "copyright" or "license," so I suspect this was a editing
error upstream, not an attempt to claim a different copyright.

The documents in the parent directory do claim copyright on the 
whole thing and license it under GPL version 1.

(from file BR-README:)

[...]
  # Copyright (C) 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999
    BeOpen.com and the Free Software Foundation, Inc.
  #
  # See the file "BR-COPY" for license and support information.
  #
  # This file is part of the OO-Browser.
[...]
  See the "BR-COPY" file for license information.

  See the "MANIFEST" file for summaries of the OO-Browser files.
[...]

(and from file MANIFEST:)

[...]
  --- GRAPHICAL BROWSER ---

  tree-w32/                 - Source and executable for the Windows system
                              OO-Browser interface. (Not included with UNIX
                              distributions of the OO-Browser.)

  tree-x/                   - Source and executable for the X window system
                              OO-Browser interface. (Not included as part of the
                              MS Windows OO-Browser.)
[...]


(Note when he says "Not included with Unix distributions..." he's
apparently talking about the binary-only distributions he also makes,
because both the X window and Microsoft Windows source trees *are*
included in the source distribution.)

So, I think I've convinced myself that oobr.rc just contains a partially-
filled-in copyright template, and was probably released that way
by mistake.  (The upstream author has not as yet answered my questions.)

Is that good enough to allow us to continue distributing that file, or
should I go to the trouble of removing it (which is somewhat painful
since it's been in our distribution this way for over two years)?

Thanks.