Hi Brent and Madhu:

The attached file contains a list of filenames within your git repo that have been identified as *not* having a License/Copyright header.

That is not to say that you *should* put a copyright/license header on each of these files.  Some of the files are for third-party components.  Clearly, you should not change or insert your copyright statement on a file that you or your organization did not author.  

In general, you should provide a copyright/license header in all files within your repository for which you, or your organization are the author.  If you look at it from the user's point of view, due to the copyright laws, the user is unable to copy or distribute any copyrightable work without express written permission by the author.  If you do not provide a copyright/license header, then the user has no rights to take your file from the repository and work with it.  They instead would have to *assume* that, since the project is identified as licensed under the EPL1.0 and/or other files within the directory structure are licensed under the EPL1.0, then this file is *probably* licensed under the EPL1.0 as well.  Making the user assume that they are probably OK to use a file should be avoided if possible.

Also, as you recall, we all sign off on the Developer Certificate of  Origin (DCO) each time we commit anything to the repository.  The DCO relies on there being a license declaration within each file and refers to it stating:  

        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
            indicated in the file; or...

So, in order for the above clause to be true in the DCO, the license header needs to be present in each file.

Finally, there are some files that are not copyrightable, and what is, and is not copyrightable depends on a myriad of factors including jurisdiction, file contents, etc..  Instead of trying to decide if a file is copyrightable or not, we suggest that you include a copyright/license header on all files that you own and which you want a user to be able to work with when they take it from the repository.  If a file turns out to not be copyrightable by the law, you have still provided valuable information regarding your intent for your downstream users.

Thanks for your help with this.  If you have any questions, please post them to the Discuss list.  We'll get them answered there so that everyone can learn from it.

Phil.

--

Phil Robb

Director - Networking Solutions

The Linux Foundation

(O) 970-229-5949

(M) 970-420-4292

Skype: Phil.Robb