OSS Watch produce useful guidelines on these sorts of topics; see http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/opensourceyourcode.xml#body.1_div.3
For GPL specifically, see the end of http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt It looks like something along the lines of the current scheme is the recommended approach. The licence info could go in a comment rather than docstring if prettier docs are desired. Best wishes, Jonathan On 23/02/2011 12:20, Thomas Waldmann wrote: > A somewhat related topic: > > We have authors and reference to the license as docstring in every > module, like: > > """ > MoinMoin - wsgi application setup and related code > > Use create_app(config) to create the WSGI application (using Flask). > > @copyright: 2000-2006 by Juergen Hermann<j...@web.de>, > 2002-2011 MoinMoin:ThomasWaldmann, > 2008 MoinMoin:FlorianKrupicka, > 2010 MoinMoin:DiogenesAugusto > @license: GNU GPL, see COPYING for details. > """ > > (the COPYING license document is also contained in the repo / release > archives) > > > There are some issues with this method: > > a) it is hard to maintain the author list there, the years and (in case > of a license change) the license reference. Author list tends to be > incomplete (some contributors don't add themselves) or outdated (code of > some authors might be removed later, but not author's name). after a > while one usually does not know any more what exactly is from whom. > > b) we want to automatically create documentation (using sphinx + some > script) from the source code. The module docstring would give more > pretty docs if there was not that author/license stuff repeated hundreds > of times. > > > Alternatives: > > a) Have some file AUTHORS (or CONTRIBUTORS?) that lists everybody having > contributed to the project. Remove all author references from the moin > module/package docstrings. > > b) Have some file LICENSE that refers to the relevant licenses, like GPL > v2, GPL v3 and also note something like "unless otherwise noted" to make > exceptions for contributed / 3rd party code possible. > > c) Refer to these files from MoinMoin package docstring (and only from > there, once). > > > I am no lawyer and no licensing expert - does anybody have a qualified > opinion about this? > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Free Software Download: Index, Search& Analyze Logs and other IT data in > Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data > generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual > or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business > insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev > _______________________________________________ > Moin-user mailing list > Moin-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/moin-user ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Free Software Download: Index, Search & Analyze Logs and other IT data in Real-Time with Splunk. Collect, index and harness all the fast moving IT data generated by your applications, servers and devices whether physical, virtual or in the cloud. Deliver compliance at lower cost and gain new business insights. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Moin-user mailing list Moin-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/moin-user
