Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/2] Two janitorial patches for builtin/blame.c

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:15:31 -0800

David Kastrup wrote:
> Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]> writes:

>> Any idea how this could be made more clear?  E.g., maybe we should
>> bite the bullet and add a line to all source files that don't already
>> state a license:
>>
>> 	/*
>> 	 * License: GPLv2.  See COPYING for details.
>> 	 */
>
> Probably somewhat more verbose like "This file may be distributed under
> the conditions of the GPLv2.  See the file COPYING for details".
> I think there are boilerplate texts for that.

All else being equal, longer is worse.

> Whatever the exact wording, that would be the cleanest way I think.  The
> respective Documentation/SubmittingPatches text looks like it is quoted
> from somewhere else, so adapting it to the realities of files without
> clear copyright statement seems less straightforward.

Hm, the wording comes from the Linux kernel project, where it's also
pretty normal not to have a license notice in every file (and where
the default license is also GPLv2).

Is the problem the phrase "indicated in the file", or is the problem
e.g. the lack of a pointer to
https://github.com/libgit2/libgit2/blob/development/git.git-authors?

Jonathan