[Joerg Schilling] > I did give an example: use what(1) on a binary compiled from the > source before and after the change to see the difference. > > If you did look at the SVN, if you did have a look at the most recent > changes..... it would be easy to understand what happened.
We have removed a lot of _duplicate_ copyright notices from source
files, as a cleanup. We have not removed copyright information from
source files; it is still there, just not repeated 2 or 3 times per
file, as it was in some cases before.
Copyright information is also printed when you run the command "wodim
-version". Yes, that means it is embedded in the binary, as you can
verify with the "strings" and "grep" commands. I note that other
commands such as 'mkisofs' do not print copyright notices with the
"-version" option - that is probably worth fixing, as some users may
look for this information.
Users typically look for copyright notices in documentation and other
materials that come with a package. (I note that the manpage we got
from you includes a copyright notice, but not in the printed text.[*])
They might try running the program with "-version" or "--version"; this
is the command-line equivalent to the GUI convention of an "About" box.
And, since this is GPL software, users are of course free to get the
source code and look there for copyright information. Which, I repeat,
is all still present.
[*] Believe it or not, this was already on my todo list. I recently
_added_ copyright notices to another of your manpages, whilst
cleaning it up, but I haven't yet found the time to do the same
cleanup job for wodim.1.
As for SCCS and what(1), free software users are not in the habit of
checking SCCS strings for copyright information. I daresay a vast
majority of free software users have never heard of SCCS strings or the
what(1) command. I happen to know about it because I've been around
Unix for a long time, but even I don't have it installed on my local
Linux system.
And speaking of my local Linux system, let me check for copyright
notices in SCCS strings. The only user binaries aside from yours that
embed copyright notices in that way are: iputils ping, netkit telnet,
tcsh, aumix, vixie cron, gprof, lsof, util-linux pg, xdaliclock, and
the ncftp suite. That is 11 packages (counting yours) out of over 1200
installed packages -- about 1%. By number of binaries it's on the
order of 25 out of 2600 -- again, 1%.
Hope this helps to clarify things,
Peter
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