On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 03:07:04PM -0400, Corey Osgood wrote:
Most of the code in these files is trivial and identical to every other super IO, with the exception of changing the model name/number. If we kept the copyright notices from every previous "author" of those files, it would probably be a dozen names, none of whom actually wrote the code in the first place.
-Corey
IANAL, but as far as I know triviality, obviousness or inventivity has nothing to do with copyright. The only requirement is originality (and maybe it depends on jurisdiction). I'm not sure what's the threshold for originality. In any case I believe if it isn't original it isn't copyrightable, so it makes no sense to add the last author name. In order to be legally able to remove a previous author name you should be sure that his or her part in the code is not copyrightable, and that is hard to argue. So I think it is much easier, safe and sound to keep a dozen (or a dozen dozens) list of authors than to remove a copyright notice, unless legal advice says otherwise, or some of the previous authors removes herself or asks to be removed.
That being said, it wouldn't be the first time that I fail in doing this, but never on purpose (typically when copying parts of a file to another, not when copying the whole file and then changing it).
Xavi.