Copying GPL code from one project to another: Legal Question

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Fri, 2008-02-01 at 17:37 -0500, Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> Hi List,
> 
> I have a legal question that I'm not sure about.  I would like to copy
> some code from snake, a project hosted on hosted.fp.o, written by
> jlaska, copyrighted attributed to RH, into smolt, which the copyrights
> are attributed to Mike McGrath.  I'm making some changes to the code,
> and of course keeping the GPL license.  How do I label the copyrights?
>  In Mike's name? in RH's name? in both?  And how do I label it
> exactly?

The SFLC has a document which covers this:

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html

That document is focused on gpl and non-gpl collaboration, but the
essentials are there (look at 2.1).
Essentially, just retain Mike's Copyright attribution as is, and add
your new copyright line above it.

~spot