[Tex/LaTex] How to put a LaTeX project (template) under a license

licensing

This is mostly off topic, but related to LaTeX.

I have a template which contains about 40 files in different folders. And additionally some packages (.sty files) which shall be published soon.

The packages contain the typical copyright statement and LaTeX Project Public License lines.
Are these also necessary in the .tex files which contain the docs or can I create a licence.txt file for the whole folder?

For the template I also wonder if I can put everything under a license with a single file. Putting 10-30 lines of license statement in each file is something I want to avoid.

Best Answer

At least a few years back i was told that the CTAN team does not want a dedicated license file, because of "old" licenses if the package is not updated anymore.

The LaTeX Project has a site "How to use the LPPL". Maybe that's a good start and that's what i use. ;-)

  %% pig.dtx
  %% Copyright 2005 M. Y. Name
  %
  % This work may be distributed and/or modified under the
  % conditions of the LaTeX Project Public License, either version 1.3
  % of this license or (at your option) any later version.
  % The latest version of this license is in
  %   http://www.latex-project.org/lppl.txt
  % and version 1.3 or later is part of all distributions of LaTeX
  % version 2005/12/01 or later.
  %
  % This work has the LPPL maintenance status `maintained'.
  % 
  % The Current Maintainer of this work is M. Y. Name.
  %
  % This work consists of the files pig.dtx and pig.ins
  % and the derived file pig.sty.
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