[racket-dev] Too many license files

From: Neil Van Dyke (neil at neilvandyke.org)
Date: Fri Feb 21 11:45:50 EST 2014

For at least third-party packages (though you might want something 
trickier for core Racket)...

I'm not a lawyer, but I figured that, for most packages I author, I 
probably don't *need* to include the full text of a well-known license 
(e.g., LGPLv3).  Instead, I give the copyright notice, state that the 
license using the recognized full name of the license (and a URL), and 
then some disclaimers.

I include this legal info in metadata in "info.rkt", and McFly makes it 
appear automatically in the documentation (with, e.g., "LGPLv3" at the 
top of the document, and the free-form legal blurb at the end of the 
document).  Example at: http://www.neilvandyke.org/racket-roomba/

I've started to also add a one-line copyright notice at the top of each 
source file in the package, something like ";; Copyright Neil Van Dyke. 
See file info.rkt."  (I might have to move to a legal notice comment 
block at the top of each file, but I'd really rather not.  Notice blocks 
don't seem to be a barrier to abuse anyway.)

Neil V.


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