Ben Giddings <bg-rubytalk / infofiend.com> writes:

> On Wednesday 11 May 2005 18:59, Nikolai Weibull wrote:
>> headers or not.  I know that some projects put in a line along the lines
>> (heh) of
>> 
>>   See the file "(COPYING|LICENSE)" for further information about the
>>   copyright and warranty status of this work.
>> 
>> Is this a possible solution, and can one do without those lines as well?
>> 
>> Finally, if one has to include some notification of the license that the
>> contents of a given file falls under, how much of it is needed?  Is the
>> warranty blurb needed?  Is the ¡Èget your copy here¡É blurb needed?
>
> You should probably consult a lawyer if this is really important, but I'll 
> share what I think I know.
>
> The source really should (maybe must) contain a copyright notice.  Once it 
> is copyrighted, by default, people's ability to use the source is severely 
> limited.  The GPL and other similar licenses give people additional rights 
> they wouldn't otherwise have.

IANAL, but isn't the file copyrighted automatically due to the Berne
Convention?

> I think if you give an unambiguous location where the license can be found, 
> you're going to be ok.
>
> If the license file is always going to be available whenever and wherever 
> the source file is available, there's no real issue.
>
> The warranty bit is probably not necessary, but is good to cover your butt 
> (just like warnings not to suffocate yourself with plastic bags).
>
> These days it may be sufficient to provide a URL for the license and put 
> that in every file.  Your only duty then would be to make sure that URL is 
> always available.

On short programs and scripts, I usually use a header like this:

# Copyright (C) 20XX  NAME  <MAIL / HOST.TLD>
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
# published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
# License, or (at your option) any later version.

A link could be a useful addition, agreed...

> But, having said all that, this is all law stuff so your best bet is to ask 
> a lawyer who can advise you what the right thing to do is for your 
> particular situation and jurisdiction.

Full ack.

> Ben
-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen / gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org