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davidrecordon
epriestley

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T2035: Is there a legal reason to have license block in every single PHP file?

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rPef85f49adc07: Delete license headers from files

Summary

This commit doesn't change license of any file. It just makes the license implicit (inherited from LICENSE file in the root directory).

We are removing the headers for these reasons:

It wastes space in editors, less code is visible in editor upon opening a file.
It brings noise to diff of the first change of any file every year.
It confuses Git file copy detection when creating small files.
We don't have an explicit license header in other files (JS, CSS, images, documentation).
Using license header in every file is not obligatory: http://www.apache.org/dev/apply-license.html#new.

This change is approved by Alma Chao (Lead Open Source and IP Counsel at Facebook).

Test Plan

Verified that the license survived only in LICENSE file and that it didn't modify externals.

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The LICENSE file should contain the full text of the license.

Full license, NOTICE

Cleanup README

Why remove it from the readme? The readme gets turned into the main landing page so it's quite common to put license information there. Maybe remove the URL?

I like having one source of truth. Either it should be README or LICENSE. We must have LICENSE so it should be it. Then there couldn't be any disputes.

On the other hand, I could see how it can be useful in README and I don't have a problem with putting it back and adding it also to other repos.

What others think?

Given that the license is quite unlikely to change I don't see the single source of truth as being problematic when compared to making this information easily accessible. At least in non-startups (or startups which are selling software) the license is one of the first questions once you've decided the software could be useful.

It's not only LICENSE, it's also NOTICE which could change quite easily. But I agree that the value of this is worth the effort of keeping it in sync and also worth the risk of getting it out of sync.

Revert README

Remove URL

epriestley accepted this revision.Nov 5 2012, 10:00 AM

Closed by commit rPef85f49adc07 (authored by @vrana).

avivey edited edge metadata.Feb 26 2016, 7:03 PM

avivey changed the visibility from "All Users" to "Public (No Login Required)".

Diff	ID	Base	Description	Created
Base			Base
Diff 1	7822	dd8813f		Nov 5 2012, 4:21 AM
Diff 2	7825	dd8813f	Full license, NOTICE	Nov 5 2012, 4:54 AM
Diff 3	7829	dd8813f	Cleanup README	Nov 5 2012, 4:58 AM
Diff 4	7831	dd8813f	Revert README	Nov 5 2012, 5:15 AM
Diff 5	7832	dd8813f	Remove URL	Nov 5 2012, 5:19 AM
Diff 6	7841	dd8813f	Commit rPef85f49adc0714e2b1acbe9368e0da9aeb8dc854	Nov 5 2012, 7:16 PM

Delete license headers from files
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	F14398977: D3886.id7825.diff
	Sun, Dec 22, 3:30 PM

	F14398748: D3886.id7822.diff
	Sun, Dec 22, 2:42 PM

	F14398682: D3886.id7841.diff
	Sun, Dec 22, 2:31 PM

	F14398521: D3886.id7829.diff
	Sun, Dec 22, 2:10 PM

Delete license headers from filesClosedPublicActions

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Delete license headers from files
ClosedPublic
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