Slim: 4.x Need to remove all file header comment blocks

[l0gicgate]

We need to remove all of these comment blocks in the header files:

/**
 * Slim Framework (https://slimframework.com)
 *
 * @link      https://github.com/slimphp/Slim
 * @copyright Copyright (c) 2011-2018 Josh Lockhart
 * @license   https://github.com/slimphp/Slim/blob/4.x/LICENSE.md (MIT License)
 */

A couple reasons:

• They provide absolutely no information or serve no purpose, the LICENSE.md file has all the required information.
• We are just creating unnecessary chores for the maintainers since we have to update the copyright dates yearly. Much simple to update the LICENSE.md file yearly

Any opposing parties?

[froschdesign]

@l0gicgate

They provide absolutely no information or serve no purpose…

I'm sorry, but this wrong. The header contains important informations:

• the name of the licence
• the link / reference to this licence
• the copyright

The problem is another: if the copyright and / or licence information is missing, your software can not be used by default because nobody knows if it's allowed.

But I'm not a lawyer or jurist and without someone with this expertise, the discussion is a waste of time – _in my opinion_!

Here my suggestion for this problem: https://github.com/malukenho/docheader

[tuupola]

IMO each source file should contain the license information. Then it is implicit what is licensed and with which license.

[RyanNerd]

This may be helpful or muddy the water. In short the most accepted suggestion is that a license file is all that is needed and to follow the specifics of the license (MIT in the case of Slim) which in part states (emphasis mine):

...copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

The MIT license does not _require_ every module to have a license header; just the substantial portions. Also, these are instructions to _those who wish to distribute the software_; not necessarily the creators of the software.

I'm leaning toward @l0gicgate 's suggestion that this be removed from all files.

[akrabat]

The Apache foundation requires that every file has the license in it but not the copyright in their policy.

[akrabat]

The Software Freedom Law Center has useful information too in their Managing copyright information within a free software project article.

In particular:

Since copyright notices are not mandatory, there is generally no harm in under-using them, particularly if authorship is recorded in VCS logs. Over-use, however, can cause problems.

[akrabat]

Given that we don't require assignment of copyright to Josh, arguably the current copyright line is incomplete at best and wrong for some files.

I think that we should keep the block with the link to the license, but lose the copyright and link elements:

/**
 * Slim Framework (https://slimframework.com)
 *
 * @license https://github.com/slimphp/Slim/blob/4.x/LICENSE.md (MIT License)
 */

[l0gicgate]

@akrabat sounds good! I’ll remove all the dated copyrights and link!