About the Apache license header

While we're more or less all well-informed people, if you dare to read general comments related to the Oracle-Google affair, not only by casual readers, but also by supposed-to-be-professionals writing in generic newspapers and news sites you'll find lots of wrong or at least badly written assertions. One of the most recurring misconceptions is the use of the Apache license header, as it has been pointed out by Apache in an official blog post and by Stephen Couleborne in many comments in the blogosphere (the latest one here). Indeed the problem seems to be that the Apache license header has been naively copied by somebody who committed to Android (as I said before, there's also the problem in the package name of the infamous class, that seemed to refer to Harmony). Ok, big fault at Google. But, what about us? Are we applying the correct license headers to our code? Are we checking them? For instance, if you download the original Apache License you can read at the bottom:    APPENDIX: How to apply the Apache License to your work.       To apply the Apache License to your work, attach the following       boilerplate notice, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]"       replaced with your own identifying information. (Don't include       the brackets!)  The text should be enclosed in the appropria...

Date: November, 16 2010
Url: http://www.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici/archive/2010/11/16/about-apache-license-header

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