[Fedora-legal-list] License header for config files?

Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa at redhat.com
Mon May 24 12:53:00 UTC 2010


On 05/24/2010 07:30 AM, Till Maas wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I asked for proper licensing on a project I was going to package and the
> question came up, whether config files should have a license header.
> 
> The ticket at their issue tracker is here:
> https://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=2869635&group_id=261773&atid=1127533
> 
> The config file can be accessed here:
> http://rcracki.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rcracki/rcracki_mt/rcracki_mt.ini?revision=9&view=markup
> 
> What is your advise here?

In general, I would not consider config files to be copyrightable,
unless they did something complicated or unique. In the example above,
IMHO, neither is true, so it is fine to not have a license header.

Rule of thumb here is to ask upstream if they feel it that the config
file is a copyrightable work. If yes, then it needs a license. If no,
then it is fine to not have one.

~spot



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