[jira] [Created] (MNG-7734) Default configuration file (settings.xml) contains copyright notice

["Philippe Cloutier (Jira)" <ji...@apache.org>]

Philippe Cloutier created MNG-7734:
--------------------------------------

             Summary: Default configuration file (settings.xml) contains copyright notice
                 Key: MNG-7734
                 URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNG-7734
             Project: Maven
          Issue Type: Wish
          Components: Settings
    Affects Versions: 3.9.0
            Reporter: Philippe Cloutier


[The default contents of Maven's settings.xml configuration file|https://gitbox.apache.org/repos/asf?p=maven.git;a=blob_plain;f=apache-maven/src/assembly/maven/conf/settings.xml;hb=HEAD] start with the following comment:
{code:xml}
<!-- 
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
 -->
{code}
As a result, my organization has settings.xml files which start with that copyright notice. This is confusing and distracting, making an already long file even longer. A casual look makes it seem as if that file is unmodified source, while it is in fact a configuration file.

It is true that the file contains sizable test comments which must be subject copyright, so the notice is correct and has some value. However, its length and prominence (before even the file's description) increases the risk of confusion.

Since copyright notices are not necessary to copyright protection, since the Apache License is permissive and since the value of copyrights on that file are limited, I recommend to remove that notice from settings.xml.



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