How to handle copyright in Open Source licenses?

Recently I decided to participate in the development of a small open source project (application for django), which I used for my own purposes. At first, I regularly fixed bugs, added features, etc. As long as we did not disagree with the creator of the project when solving another problem. He rejected my patch, I did not agree, and of course I did it in my own way anyway. ;) Since the question was quite serious and concerned the structure of the database, I made all further changes locally, only for myself.



Soon, I noticed that my branch began to noticeably differ from the initial project, and is full of my own code by a little more than half. And then I thought, wouldn’t I make my own open source lunopark project out of it?



At first I asked myself a question - do I even have the right to create something of my own based on this project? It turned out - yes, because He has a New BSD License . But at the same time, “or, in Russian, I must retain the copyright notice of the author and the license itself. This is where the misunderstandings have arisen: if I keep the license unchanged, then how can I indicate that this is still my project, just made on the basis of someone else's? Invented such options:

- In the existing LICENSE.txt, enter yourself next to each other, separated by commas

- In the existing LICENSE.txt add a couple of lines like “Some code partially copyright © 2008 Me”

- Create another, your LICENSE.txt

- Leave the license alone, just enter yourself in AUTHORS or README.

- Rewrite all the code and do not bother :)

- ...

')

Maybe someone knows the correct answer?



ps. At the same time, I realized that I completely did not understand the open source device licenses. For example, people who send patches, do they have any copyrights for them?



ps2. What kind of project - I will tell you when I do (if I do).