GPL, COPYING file

[Arnoud Engelfriet]

Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote:
> My friend believe that he should add the whole licence to every single
> file of the package.

I don't know of any legal reason to put the whole license text in
every source code file. 

The only risk is that someone omits the COPYING file so that it's
unclear which license was meant. To avoid that, don't just say
"This file's license is in the file COPYING" but something like
"This file is licensed under the GNU General Public License
version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation. See
the file COPYING for details."

Arnoud

-- 
IT lawyer, blogger and patent attorney ~ Partner at ICTRecht.nl legal services
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