From GPLv2: "You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change."

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Errr, but how does someone know that something is copyrighted and what license if nobody is writing this info? Who do i contact when i have no info of copyright and want to use some others code?

It may be ridiculous for that author but it's quite important.

If there is no notice you can assume it is copyrighted. Because unless explicitly stated otherwise, it is.

Sure, but under what license is it made available. If I find some source code floating around on the internet while looking for the solution to some problem I'm having, knowing what license it's under is kind of important.

How often does that happen really? I can't recall the last time I saw source code where you couldn't tell:

1. What license it's released under. 2. Who you can contact to get permission to use it.

If there's really no way to tell who the author is or what license it's under, then I'd say not to use it. It's probably better in the long run that way anyhow.

I loathe source code templates. To use web (newspaper?) terminology, it puts the content below the fold.

It also raises the cost of factoring code out into its own file. Even a simple code header can easily be double the amount of code I consider worth extracting.

I know many IDEs add them automatically, so it doesn't feel like much of a cost to the writer, but as the reader, you pay it every time. Why waste brain power thinking "Ok, ignore everything above, this down here is the real source code"?

In emacs, hs-hide-initial-comment-block works miracles. I'm sure other editors have ways to do that as well.

(That said, I totally agree with you. I wouldn't use them at all if I wasn't forced to at work.)

I don't agree with most of this. Yes it is pointless to include the filename within the file itself, but it's still a good idea to retain the copyright statement and author names/email addresses. In an ideal world everyone would use version control all of the time and nobody would ever swap individual source files between projects having incompatible licenses, but in the real world of software development things don't always happen that way. Having the license within each file makes it unambiguous exactly what rights are being asserted, and if someone wants to change the terms they have to make actual modifications to the code (they can't just claim to have changed their opinion, or whatever).

If you're running a large project with thousands of files license changes can be automated with some trivial amount of coding, so this isn't a major issue. In large projects the license terms don't change very often anyway.

I don't know. I didn't find the article interesting. I mean copyright, comments and what not on files...? Come on!

These templates are written for a reason. Some companies DO write templates to make their files "standard". This is nothing new especially in a corporate environment.

Just a couple of questions.

So if I see a file lying somewhere around the internet, how do I tell who owns the copyright? How can I tell when it expires?

And if I find an executable, say, lying around in a coffee shop, how do I tell who it belongs to?

The berne deal doesn't require you to label these things, but without them, how can someone else tell?

For smallish (one or a few files) library/API/snippet type stuff, I kind of like the style of putting the authors and changelog at the top of the file, along with brief documentation of using it and a statement of license terms. Bigger libraries will of course have separate ChangeLog and README files and such, but for one-file stuff, I often just end up copying the file into my own project, and it's nice when it's a self-contained file with the relevant info all in there.

How common that is might vary in different programming languages. It's quite common to share Javascript code by just swapping standalone .js files, and it's not uncommon in the Lisp world either.

Can't the major complaints be addressed by just moving all this to the bottom of the file?

  # foo.py: objects that manage the interaction between foos and bars
  # (see eof for license and detailed description)

I use templates.

My Perl template is:

   use MooseX::Declare;

   class $classname {
   }

My Haskell template is:

   module $module where

If you need anything more complicated than that, it's time to write code to fix the problem, rather than have your editor type the same text again and again and again and again.

Comment not related to the article.

The "templates" the article is talking about are large boilerplate comment blocks at the top of source code files, with license, attribution, changelog, etc. information. Nothing about executable code.

Yup, and my templates include that section.

Yikes!

"This means that you don’t need to do anything to have copyright over your works."

But you DO need a copyright notice to collect damages for infringement. Without a notice, the most you can get is an injunction to stop infringement.

"Often, source code files repeat the file name in the file itself."

So you can tell which file when printing, or when viewing through a broken web interface.

"But you DO need a copyright notice to collect damages for infringement."

Really? I would need some kind of source for that claim.

Yeah, that is wrong. The distinction is that damages are often a pittance unless the copyright is registered.

I doubt it would be worth the time and money of litigating in court to collect damages on a copyright case anyway unless you're Google or Microsoft.

Semi-off-topic comment:

Figlet output. Yay!

Alas, ego gets in the way of karma, once again. Time to move on to things people will upvote, I guess ....

Hey, Figlet is an awesome library. I'm glad to see your work getting used!