Re: "all rights reserved" and GPL
Hi,
On 6/28/07, Shriramana Sharma <samjnaa@gmail.com> wrote:
Hello. In the license header of a source file being licensed under the
GPL, there must be a copyright notice. Sometimes I see the usage of "All
rights reserved" in that notice:
// Copyright (C) 2007, Company X. All rights reserved.
The use of the terminology 'All rights reserved' is directly
inconsistent with also saying that it is licensed under the GPL. It
should always be avoided.
3) If it is that the licensor wants to say: "Any rights I have not
explicitly given you, you do not have"?
On its current wording, I would interpret the phrase "All rights
reserved" to mean that there is no licence given over the file.
4) If so, would it not be necessary, strictly speaking, to say so, i.e.
"All rights regarding this work, unless explicitly granted to the
licensee, are reserved by the licensor"? "All rights reserved" seems to
be inappropriate, if not incorrect, when in fact all rights are *not*
reserved.
Correct; if this is desired (it really shouldn't be, the licences
generally say this anyway), you could state "All rights not
specifically granted under a licence ... are reserved."
5) Is it *advisable* to use such a terminology in a copyright statement
in a file licensed under the GPL?
Regards,
Nic
--
Nic Suzor
nic@suzor.com
http://nic.suzor.com/
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