Specific license field

[Duncan Coutts]

On Tue, 2009-11-10 at 15:38 +0000, Neil Mitchell wrote:

> How do people modify the LICENSE file to indicate their GPL2/GPL2plus
> intention? From what I can see, the LICENSE file is the GPL2, and you
> need to say how it applies to your code - that's not something for the
> LICENSE file itself, but for the package metadata. Does Debian have
> some standard wording that applies this?

The "How to Apply These Terms to Your New Libraries" section of the LGPL
states:

To apply these terms, attach the following notices to the library.  It
is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most
effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have
at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is
found.

        <one line to give the library's name and a brief idea of what it
        does.>
        Copyright (C) <year>  <name of author>
        
        This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
        modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
        License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
        version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later
        version.
        
        This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
        but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
        MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
        GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
        
        You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
        License along with this library; if not, write to the Free
        Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston,
        MA  02110-1301  USA


Standard practise is pretty similar. Some projects have the notice in
each file, some have it once at the top level somewhere. People
sometimes omit the final paragraph. People sometimes remove the bit "or
(at your option) any later version".

Duncan