Re: Does or could git handle file licensing information?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 5, 2012, 09:17 UTC
Message-ID: <CACBZZX5DOgfwot=Murke4i4=QgUPiLJFSOicYRX_DZu1-3-_ZQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <201209051251.51203.yohann.ferreira@orange.fr>

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Yohann Ferreira <yohann.ferreira@orange.fr> wrote:

> As a day-to-day hard git user ;), I also have to manage files with different
> licenses I need to track.
> As git handles all those files in a very smart way, I wondered whether git
> could also handle that information, at least somehow.

Say you have files like:

    main.c
    imglib.c
    config.c

Why not just have these files:

    license-info/GPL
    license-info/SOME-OTHER-LICENSE

Which would contain, respectively:

    main.c
    config.c

And:

    imglib.c

Then just have a script, maybe add it as a hook on your server before it accepts a push which ensures that all files currently in the tree are listed in those license-info/* files.

You could also just add a license header to each of these files, and have a script that ensures that everything has such a header. I think the Debian project has such a script that you could adapt.

Git just tracks files, so just do this in some file-based manner and you'll be fine.