[Mesa-dev] [RFC] docs: Add a copyright.c template we can copy when making new files.

[Eric Engestrom]

On Friday, 2018-10-19 20:43:44 +0100, Chris Wilson wrote:
> Quoting Kenneth Graunke (2018-10-19 18:51:36)
> > Usually when making a new file, people copy some random other file
> > to get the copyright header comments.  Unfortunately, some of them
> > are commented in a decades-old style, are word wrapped poorly, or
> > worse, have a few subtle variations in the text.  While we've tried
> > to clean those up, we're not going to get every copy to be perfect.
> > 
> > Instead, this commit adds docs/copyright.c, which contains a copy of
> > the license header which is well-formatted and has the correct text.
> > The idea is that you can start from this when making a new file, which
> > should help with consistency.
> > ---
> >  docs/copyright.c | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 22 insertions(+)
> >  create mode 100644 docs/copyright.c
> > 
> > Hey all,
> > 
> > I noticed when writing my new Iris driver that I had a couple subtle
> > variations of copyright headers creep in, even in a brand new project.
> > Mostly word wrapping differences.  To combat that, I made a copyright.c
> > and made sure to use it when I created new files.  It seemed to help.
> > 
> > So, the thinking is to just actually put that in the project under docs.
> > Maybe it helps other people as well?
> 
> May I suggest spdx.org and in particular using a format such as
> 
> /* SPDX: MIT */
> 
> with a toplevel description of what the link means. From a dev point of
> view, it's much quicker to see what licence variant is being used and
> even harder for mistakes to creep in.
> -Chris

Agreed, this actually solves the issue. I had been thinking about
replacing all the variants of MIT copies around Mesa et al since a year
or so ago when that was done in the kernel, but I had kinda forgotten
about it.

As is, you're essentially suggesting https://xkcd.com/927
I think removing the source of the problem is a much better solution ;)