PSA: Please use short-license block for new files

[Eric Seidel]

Chromium has a very cool licensing solution which avoids the 100 line
boilerplate at the top of each file, instead we use:

// Copyright (c) 2014 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

I've asked around internally and confirmed that Blink is now set-up
correctly to do so too! [1]

Please consider using this shorter license block for *new* files.
It's not worth the hassle to try and change existing files.

If you use this license, you must be sure to make sure you're listed
in the Chromium Authors file [2] and have followed the external
contributor checklist [3].

Thanks!

1. http://crbug.com/336943
2. http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/src/AUTHORS
3. http://dev.chromium.org/developers/contributing-code/external-contributor-checklist

[Avi Drissman]

I'm sorry, but you have the copyright block wrong.

The correct short copyright block is:

// Copyright 2014 The Chromium Authors. All rights reserved.

// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style license that can be
// found in the LICENSE file.

Note that there is no "(c)" in the first line. It is obsolete.

Avi

[Eric Seidel]

Thank you for the correction.

I wish an automated tool enforced this... This is such a useful place
for humans to be spending their valuable time. :)

[Avi Drissman]

I agree :)

Mark...

[Andrew Scherkus]

I believe it's already part of the default presubmit checks:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/tools/depot_tools/presubmit_canned_checks.py&l=379

Perhaps it's a matter of fixing up the search path:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/tools/depot_tools/presubmit_support.py&l=243

And in case anyone is wondering how we got here, here's the relevant discussion on chromium-dev@:

https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/chromium-dev/8p4JKV76kig/OiFYFjuZ6nAJ

Andrew

[Mathias Bynens]

What happens when existing files are edited? Is it okay, or even
required, to change the license block to the shorter version?

Does this apply to v8 as well? (The old thread
https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!msg/chromium-dev/8p4JKV76kig/OiFYFjuZ6nAJ
seemed to indicate it did.)

[Eric Seidel]

My understanding is that existing files, with existing copyright
headers should just be left alone.

I'm only pointing out that it's now possible (and recommended) to use
the shorter copyright header going forward.

[Dirk Pranke]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 1:32 PM, Andrew Scherkus <sche...@chromium.org> wrote:

I believe it's already part of the default presubmit checks:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/tools/depot_tools/presubmit_canned_checks.py&l=379

Perhaps it's a matter of fixing up the search path:

https://code.google.com/p/chromium/codesearch#chromium/tools/depot_tools/presubmit_support.py&l=243

Indeed, I would expect the presubmit checks to do the right thing. If they aren't (and I haven't checked), file a bug and I'll attempt to fix them.

-- Dirk