diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
index 474fcc5fa..9690c3f6f 100644
--- a/COPYING
+++ b/COPYING
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-Copyright (C) 2000 Carsten Haitzler and various contributors (see AUTHORS)
 
 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
 of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to
@@ -10,15 +9,20 @@ furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
 all copies of the Software and its Copyright notices. In addition publicly
 documented acknowledgment must be given that this software has been used if no
-source code of this software is made available publicly. This includes
-acknowledgments in either Copyright notices, Manuals, Publicity and Marketing
-documents or any documentation provided with any product containing this
-software. This License does not apply to any software that links to the
-libraries provided by this software (statically or dynamically), but only to
-the software provided.
+source code of this software is made available publicly. Making the source
+available publicly means including the source for this software with the
+distribution, or a method to get this software via some reasonable mechanism
+(electronic transfer via a network or media) as well as making an offer to
+supply the source on request. This Copyright notice serves as an offer to
+supply the source on on request as well. Instead of this, supplying
+acknowledgments of use of this software in either Copyright notices, Manuals,
+Publicity and Marketing documents or any documentation provided with any
+product containing this software. This License does not apply to any software
+that links to the libraries provided by this software (statically or
+dynamically), but only to the software provided.
 
-Please see the COPYING.PLAIN for a plain-english explanation of this notice
-and it's intent.
+Please see the COPYING-PLAIN for a plain-english explanation of this notice
+and its intent.
 
 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,