RE: [PHP-DEV] Simplify license headers

On Mon, 28 Jan 2019, Zeev Suraski wrote: > > > I would like to make two changes to this header: > > > > 1. Change "PHP Version 7" line to just "PHP", to avoid the necessity > > of updating this for > > new major versions. I don't think the version information here is particularly useful > > to > > anybody. > > I don't mind that much, but I don't see any issue with keeping it the way it is > either. It does look nicer the way it is now IMHO, and the cost associated with changing it twice a > decade is, well, not very substantial. > > > 2. Remove the "Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group" line. Apart from requiring > > a > > yearly update, this line is actually complete misinformation, because the PHP group > > does *not* hold the copyright for the PHP source code. This would require a copyright > > assignment agreement on behalf of all contributors, which we do not collect. > > > > We could also just drop the header entirely, I'm just proposing these two changes as > > the path of least resistance towards getting the "annoying" parts removed. > > I'm no lawyer, but I do believe a case can be made for claiming that a > person putting code into files with the header 'Copyright (c) XYZ', is > in fact implicitly assigning copyright to XYZ. So while it's not as > strong as an explicit copyright assignment, and while it was never > tested in court (and hopefully never will be) - I do see value in > keeping it. I certainly don't see a reason to change it after 20 > years where it didn't seem to bother anybody, unless there's a strong > reason to do that, which currently I don't see. It could be changed to "1997-present" though, in which case it doesn't need updating once a year (and messing up history in VCS). cheers, Derick