Newsgroups: php.internals
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Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2019 20:38:55 +0100
Message-ID: <CAF+90c9+g7k8Oq4ZtTm1mzkx0gwBJsu=2Yvto4rZeuqTusCeLQ@mail.gmail.com>
To: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="0000000000001e871e058075b715"
Subject: Simplify license headers
From: nikita.ppv@gmail.com (Nikita Popov)

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Hi internals,

Some of our source files currently contain a license header similar to this:

/*
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| PHP Version 7 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| This source file is subject to version 3.01 of the PHP license, |
| that is bundled with this package in the file LICENSE, and is |
| available through the world-wide-web at the following url: |
| http://www.php.net/license/3_01.txt |
| If you did not receive a copy of the PHP license and are unable to |
| obtain it through the world-wide-web, please send a note to |
| license@php.net so we can mail you a copy immediately. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Authors: Andi Gutmans <andi@php.net> |
| Zeev Suraski <zeev@php.net> |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
*/

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.

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.

Regards,
Nikita

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