

Ask HN: Is there a standard for including license, attribution within code? - shpoonj

Browsing through others' code on GitHub, it seems everyone picks their own way to include copyright and attribution information at the top of their files.<p>Is there a standard for what information to include and in what format?<p>Furthermore, is it not a better idea to simply include this in the readme and leave it out of the code altogether?
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martey
_Furthermore, is it not a better idea to simply include this in the readme and
leave it out of the code altogether?_

Luis Villa discusses some reasons why you might want include licensing
information in every file: [http://tieguy.org/blog/2012/03/17/on-the-
importance-of-per-f...](http://tieguy.org/blog/2012/03/17/on-the-importance-
of-per-file-license-information/)

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alias1
I can't remember if this was an official style guide anywhere, or whether I
just saw it on a project and liked it, but this is what I have been using.

    
    
      // Project Name
      // https://github.com/myuser/my-project-name
      //
      // Copyright (c) 2012 My Name
      //
      // Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
      // you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
      // You may obtain a copy of the License at
      //
      //    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
      //
      // Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      // distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
      // WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
      // See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
      // limitations under the License.

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debacle
I include a URL to the license in every file, and the license as part of the
codebase. I don't believe that's a standard, but it's what jQuery does:

<http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.2.js>

And it seems like a good balance between honoring the license and also keeping
it out of the user's way.

