Add proper copyright header to each source files.

[GoogleCodeExporter]

It is needed to pass Debian's licensecheck.pl script.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by maruel@chromium.org on 4 Sep 2013 at 10:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Issue chromium:285352 has been merged into this issue.

Original comment by maruel@chromium.org on 4 Sep 2013 at 10:34

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Hey there.

Presumably you're packaging colorama into a package for Debian?

I don't want to be unhelpful, but I don't believe in putting copyright info 
into every source code file. Doesn't it belong in a single place, i.e. the 
project LICENSE file?

Original comment by tart...@gmail.com on 9 Sep 2013 at 1:10

[GoogleCodeExporter]

There are mixed opinions about this. We're actually using colorama in Chromium 
codebase, see https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=285352

We have over 100 third party libraries in the codebase. While we audit all of 
their licenses, it's also helpful for Open Source Distributions like Debian and 
others to at least semi-automatically see what licenses apply to our 100+ 
libraries. For a team of volunteers this is a pretty big task, and having 
license headers in each file is helpful. Note that it doesn't need to be a full 
text of the license. For example in Chromium project we use this:

// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

Still, it's preferred to use a full header if possible to help avoid any 
ambiguity. When people copy your library around, and bundle it as part of other 
third party project (the nesting can be 1 or even 2 levels deep), finding the 
right scope of a LICENSE file can be tricky, especially if it's missing 
(fortunately not the case here, but in general nothing is guaranteed). And then 
is it LICENSE, LICENSE.txt, COPYING, COPYING.txt and so on - it's trivial for 
people, but becomes increasingly non-trivial to automate.

Also see the following for recommendations (not all directly related to BSD, 
but still):

http://producingoss.com/en/license-quickstart.html

"The standard way to do this is to put the full license text in a file called 
COPYING (or LICENSE) included with the source code, and then put a short notice 
in a comment at the top of each source file, naming the copyright date, holder, 
and license, and saying where to find the full text of the license."

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html

"This statement should go near the beginning of every source file, close to the 
copyright notices."

http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/FAQ.html

"To apply the Mozilla Public License to software that you have written, add the 
header from Exhibit A of the license to each source code file in your project."

Original comment by phajdan.jr@chromium.org on 9 Sep 2013 at 6:29

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Acknowledged. I don't like that the (legal) world works this way, but in the 
spirit of helping out, I'll make it happen. Give me a few days, I'll push out a 
PyPy release.

Original comment by tart...@gmail.com on 9 Sep 2013 at 7:45

• Changed state: Accepted

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The change for this is done now.

Original comment by tart...@gmail.com on 21 Sep 2013 at 10:15

• Changed state: Fixed