License Notices - Information For Maintainers of GNU Software

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4.5 License Notices

Every nontrivial file needs a license notice as well as the copyright notice. (Without a license notice giving permission to copy and change the file would make the file non-free.)

The package itself should contain a full copy of GPL (conventionally in a file named COPYING) and the GNU Free Documentation License (included within your documentation). If the package contains any files distributed under the Lesser GPL, it should contain a full copy of that as well (conventionally in a file named COPYING.LIB).

You can get the official versions of these files from three places. You can use whichever is the most convenient for you.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
The directory /gd/gnuorg on the host fencepost.gnu.org. (You can ask [email protected] for an account there if you don't have one).
The gnulib project on savannah.gnu.org, which you can access via anonymous CVS. See http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/gnulib.

The official Texinfo sources for the licenses are also available in those same places, so you can include them in your documentation. A GFDL-covered manual must include the GFDL in this way. See GNU Sample Texts, for a full example in a Texinfo manual.

Typically the license notice for program files (including build scripts, configure files and makefiles) should cite the GPL, like this:

This file is part of GNU program
GNU program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version.
GNU program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with program; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.

But in a small program which is just a few files, you can use this instead:

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

Documentation files should have license notices also. Manuals should use the GNU Free Documentation License. Here is an example of the license notice to use after the copyright notice. Please adjust the list of invariant sections as appropriate for your manual. (If there are none, then say “with no invariant sections”.) See GNU Sample Texts, for a full example in a Texinfo manual.

     Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
     under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
     any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with the
     Invariant Sections being "GNU General Public License", with the
     Front-Cover Texts being ``A GNU Manual,'' and with the Back-Cover Texts
     as in (a) below.  A copy of the license is included in the section
     entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
     
     (a) The FSF's Back-Cover Text is: ``You are free to copy and modify
     this GNU Manual.  Buying copies from GNU Press supports the FSF in
     developing GNU and promoting software freedom.''

If the FSF does not publish this manual on paper, then omit the last sentence in (a) that talks about copies from GNU Press. If the FSF is not the copyright holder, then replace ‘FSF’ with the appropriate name.

See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto.html for more advice about how to use the GNU FDL.

If the manual is over 400 pages, or if the FSF thinks it might be a good choice for publishing on paper, then please include our standard invariant section which explains the importance of free documentation. Write to [email protected] to get a copy of this section.

Note that when you distribute several manuals together in one software package, their on-line forms can share a single copy of the GFDL (see section 6). However, the printed (‘.dvi’) forms should each contain a copy of the GFDL, unless they are set up to be printed and published only together. Therefore, it is usually simplest to include the GFDL in each manual.

Small supporting files, short manuals (under 300 lines long) and rough documentation (README files, INSTALL files, etc) can use a simple all-permissive license like this one:

     Copying and distribution of this file, with or without modification,
     are permitted in any medium without royalty provided the copyright
     notice and this notice are preserved.

If your package distributes Autoconf macros that are intended to be used (hence distributed) by third-party packages under possibly incompatible licenses, you may also use the above all-permissive license for these macros.

If you would like help with license issues or with using the GFDL, please contact [email protected].