* Lumiera source code always was copyrighted by individual contributors
* there is no entity "Lumiera.org" which holds any copyrights
* Lumiera source code is provided under the GPL Version 2+
== Explanations ==
Lumiera as a whole is distributed under Copyleft, GNU General Public License Version 2 or above.
For this to become legally effective, the ''File COPYING in the root directory is sufficient.''
The licensing header in each file is not strictly necessary, yet considered good practice;
attaching a licence notice increases the likeliness that this information is retained
in case someone extracts individual code files. However, it is not by the presence of some
text, that legally binding licensing terms become effective; rather the fact matters that a
given piece of code was provably copyrighted and published under a license. Even reformatting
the code, renaming some variables or deleting parts of the code will not alter this legal
situation, but rather creates a derivative work, which is likewise covered by the GPL!
The most relevant information in the file header is the notice regarding the
time of the first individual copyright claim. By virtue of this initial copyright,
the first author is entitled to choose the terms of licensing. All further
modifications are permitted and covered by the License. The specific wording
or format of the copyright header is not legally relevant, as long as the
intention to publish under the GPL remains clear. The extended wording was
based on a recommendation by the FSF. It can be shortened, because the full terms
of the license are provided alongside the distribution, in the file COPYING.
In the Lumiera code base, we use C-String constants as unique error-IDs.
Basically this allows to create new unique error IDs anywhere in the code.
However, definition of such IDs in arbitrary namespaces tends to create
slight confusion and ambiguities, while maintaining the proper use statements
requires some manual work.
Thus I introduce a new **standard scheme**
* Error-IDs for widespread use shall be defined _exclusively_ into `namespace lumiera::error`
* The shorthand-Macro `LERR_()` can now be used to simplify inclusion and referral
* (for local or single-usage errors, a local or even hidden definition is OK)
- most notably the NOBUG logging flags have been renamed now
- but for the configuration, I'll stick to "GUI" for now,
since "Stage" would be bewildering for an occasional user
- in a similar vein, most documentation continues to refer to the GUI
...under the assumption that the content is normalised,
which means
- leading NULL is changed to Symbol::EMPTY
- missing elements in the middle are marked as "*"
- trailing NULL in extension storage is handled by adjusting nominal extension size
