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

5 points by shpoonj ↗ HN
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.

Is there a standard for what information to include and in what format?

Furthermore, is it not a better idea to simply include this in the readme and leave it out of the code altogether?

3 comments

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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.

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.