Item299: Adjust the copyright notice in EditTablePlugin after thorough analysis

Reviewed the copyright notice on the EditTablePlugin .txt file after an official complaint from Peter Thoeny.

The copyright is now restored to the ORIGINAL copyright as it was before contributors that are now on Foswiki.

Summary:

EditTablePlugin/lib/TWiki/Plugins/EditTablePlugin.pm
 15181 PeterThoeny # Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Peter Thoeny,
peter@thoeny.org and TWiki
 15181 PeterThoeny # Contributors.

EditTablePlugin/lib/TWiki/Plugins/EditTablePlugin/Core.pm
  8154 PeterThoeny # Plugin for TWiki Enterprise Collaboration Platform,
http://TWiki.org/
  3823 CrawfordCurrie #
 17719 PeterThoeny # Copyright (C) 2008 Arthur Clemens,
arthur@visiblearea.com
 15262 ArthurClemens # Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Peter Thoeny,
peter@thoeny.org and
 15181 PeterThoeny # TWiki Contributors.

EditTablePlugin/data/TWiki/EditTablePlugin
 17719 PeterThoeny |  Plugin Author: | Arthur Clemens,
TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny |
 17719 PeterThoeny |  Copyright: | © 2008 Arthur Clemens, 2002-2008
TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny ([[http://www.twiki.net/][TWIKI.NET]]) and TWiki
Contributors |
 11392 PeterThoeny |  License: | GPL
([[http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html][GNU General Public License]]) |

The svn that changed the copy right to including TWiki.net
r15181 | PeterThoeny | 2007-10-07 11:07:59 +0200 (Sun, 07 Oct 2007) | 1 line

Item4182: Add VarEDITTABLE variable documentation

-|  Plugin Author: | [[http://www.structuredwikis.com/][Peter Thoeny]] |
-|  Copyright: | © 2002-2006, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny |
+|  Plugin Author: | TWiki:Main/PeterThoeny |
+|  Copyright: | © 2002-2007, TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny
([[http://www.twiki.net/][TWIKI.NET]]) and TWiki Contributors |


It can be clearly seen in the information below.

Besides the refactoring of text from EditTablePlugin.txt into
VarEDITTABLE Peter Thoeny has not been the maintainer of EditTablePlugin
for many years. Main contributors have been Arthur Clemens, Crawford
Currie, Kenneth Lavrsen, and Byron Darrah. Hardly any of the original
source code is left.
Original copyright notice did not include linking to TWiki.net. It was
added in 2007.
Copyright notices in the actual code does not include TWiki.net. The
TWiki.net linking was added by Peter Thoeny in 2007 to give higher
Google ranking because the plugin is found 1000s of places in the
Internet. He is not the only one that has used/abused this fact on
twiki.org.

When forking to Foswiki we follow the GPL and maintain the original
copyright statements. If we fail to get it right we will correct it. In
this case the original - from before main maintenance was done by the
contributors that are now all in Foswiki - stated © 2002-2006,
TWiki:Main.PeterThoeny. The source code says however 2002-2007

The correct is not clear but the most accurate seems to be: Copyright
(C) 2002-2007 Peter Thoeny, peter@thoeny.org and TWiki Contributors for
this plugin + the new Foswiki copyright. It makes no sense to use the
structuredwikis link and it is not reasonable to claim the newer
TWiki.net Google rank trick on work that has been maintained and
completely rewritten by the now forked community already before
TWiki.net existed.

So we will change to this

Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Peter Thoeny, peter@thoeny.org and TWiki
Contributors for this plugin + the new Foswiki copyright.

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The GPL says:

_ 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of arranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program. _

which we comply with with this change.

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This answer is communicated back to twiki mailing list

Attached is full analysis

-- KennethLavrsen - 25 Nov 2008

• svn_blame_edittableplugin.txt: Analysis in great detail