> > I have to assume that given the nature of MAME and how it's developed > > that such a case (99% attributable to one person) is the minority, that is ... a > > straw-man. If I'm way off base and most files are clearly attributable to single > > person than please set me straight. > > In a lot of cases there is only one person that does the majority of the work on each > file. Someone might have to make changes to it if another class changes it's > interface, but in those cases I believe they don't get a piece of the copyright pie. > Usually if two people contributed enough that they deserve to share the copyright > then they both know that the other person worked on it. There are exceptions and > mistakes will be made, but the usual case is that you know whether a file is "yours" > or not.
imho, the only problematic cases are things like galaxold.c or some 8080-related drivers, where parts of code went through lots of adjustments/additions over the years. but it's just a matter of sorting out easy cases first, and then go through the submission logs for these more delicate ones (checking the commits one by one to see which ones contain copyrightable code and which do not)...