TheDoDo says:
It was asked in a week-old thread how does one copyright your software.
This is how:
Place the following license in main file of source code and also place in
the Help|About info dialog box of your app. You're all set. Now, nobody
can rip you off.
,----[ Copyright ]
| GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
| Version 2, June 1991
|
| Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
| 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
| USA
| Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
| of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
|
| Preamble
|
| The licenses for most software are designed to take away your
| freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public
| License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free
| software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This
| General Public License applies to most of the Free Software
| Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to
| using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by
| the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to
| your programs, too.
|
| When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not
| price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you
| have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for
| this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it
| if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it
| in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.
|
| To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid
| anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights.
| These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you
| distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.
|
| For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether
| gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that
| you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the
| source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their
| rights.
|
| We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and
| (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy,
| distribute and/or modify the software.
|
| Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain
| that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free
| software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we
| want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
| that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original
| authors' reputations.
|
| Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
| patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
| program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
| program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
| patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
|
| The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and
| modification follow.
|
| GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
| TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
|
| 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains
| a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed
| under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below,
| refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program"
| means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
| that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it,
| either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another
| language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in
| the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
|
| Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
| covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of
| running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
| is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
| Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).
| Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
|
| 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 warranty; 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.
|
| You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
| you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
|
| 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion
| of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and
| distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1
| above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
|
| a) You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices
| stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
|
| b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
| whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
| part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
| parties under the terms of this License.
|
| c) If the modified program normally reads commands interactively
| when run, you must cause it, when started running for such
| interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an
| announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
| notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide
| a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under
| these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this
| License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but
| does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on
| the Program is not required to print an announcement.)
|
| These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
| identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
| and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
| themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
| sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
| distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
| on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
| this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
| entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
|
| Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
| your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
| exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
| collective works based on the Program.
|
| In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
| with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
| a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
| the scope of this License.
|
| 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
| under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
| Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
|
| a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
| source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
| 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange;
| or,
|
| b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
| years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
| cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
| machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
| distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
| customarily used for software interchange; or,
|
| c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
| to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
| allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
| received the program in object code or executable form with such
| an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
|
| The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
| making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
| code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
| associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
| control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
| special exception, the source code distributed need not include
| anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
| form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
| operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
| itself accompanies the executable.
|
| If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering
| access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent
| access to copy the source code from the same place counts as
| distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not
| compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
|
| 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
| except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
| otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
| void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
| However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
| this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
| parties remain in full compliance.
|
| 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
| signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or
| distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are
| prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by
| modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the
| Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and
| all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying
| the Program or works based on it.
|
| 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
| Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
| original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
| these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
| restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
| You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
| this License.
|
| 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
| infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
| conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
| otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
| excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
| distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
| License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
| may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
| license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
| all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
| the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
| refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
|
| If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under
| any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to
| apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other
| circumstances.
|
| It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any
| patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any
| such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the
| integrity of the free software distribution system, which is
| implemented by public license practices. Many people have made
| generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed
| through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
| system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing
| to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot
| impose that choice.
|
| This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to
| be a consequence of the rest of this License.
|
| 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in
| certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the
| original copyright holder who places the Program under this License
| may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding
| those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among
| countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates
| the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
|
| 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions
| of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will
| be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to
| address new problems or concerns.
|
| Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program
| specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any
| later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions
| either of that version or of any later version published by the Free
| Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of
| this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
| Software Foundation.
|
| 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free
| programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author
| to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free
| Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes
| make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals
| of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and
| of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
|
| NO WARRANTY
|
| 11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
| FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
| OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
| PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED
| OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
| MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS
| TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
| PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING,
| REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
|
| 12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
| WRITING
| WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR
| REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES,
| INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
| ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT
| LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES
| SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE
| WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN
| ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
|
| END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
|
| How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
|
| If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
| possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
| free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these
| terms.
|
| To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest
| to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
| convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
| the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
|
| <one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it
| does.>
| Copyright (C) <year> <name of author>
|
| This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
| it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
| the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
| (at your option) any later version.
|
| This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
| but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
| MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
| GNU General Public License for more details.
|
| You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
| along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
| Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307
| USA
|
|
| Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
|
| If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
| when it starts in an interactive mode:
|
| Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
| Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show
| w'. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
| under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.
|
| The hypothetical commands `show w' and `show c' should show the
| appropriate
| parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may
| be called something other than `show w' and `show c'; they could even be
| mouse-clicks or menu items--whatever suits your program.
|
| You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your
| school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, if
| necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
|
| Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
| `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
|
| <signature of Ty Coon>, 1 April 1989
| Ty Coon, President of Vice
|
| This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
| into
| proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may
| consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with
| the
| library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General
| Public License instead of this License.
`----