Copyright Notices

This document clarifies our rules regarding copyright notices.

The general rule is as follow: every source file and textual data file that we publish must have a copyright notice that extends from the initial commit in GitHub (2010) to now. The copyright notice should have this exact form:

// Copyright (c) 2010-YYYY <Author>, The appleseedhq Organization

There are two copyright holders here, <Author> and The appleseedhq Organization: the comma between <Author> and The appleseedhq Organization is a "and", not a "from".

Now, there is a special case to this rule for pre-2014 files: the organization switched from "Jupiter Jazz Limited" to "The appleseedhq Organization" in January 2014. Pre-2014 files must retain the original copyright notice and add the new one, so those files end up with two successive notices:

// Copyright (c) 2010-2014 <Author>, Jupiter Jazz Limited
// Copyright (c) 2014-YYYY <Author>, The appleseedhq Organization

The last point concerns <Author>: it is the full name of the initial author of the file. If the entire content of the entire file is replaced (which can also happen through successive move/rename file operations), it is possible to replace <Author> by the name of the actual author of the new content. There is no hard rules here, fairplay is de rigueur.