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License & Copyright Headers

Source files should have both an SPDX copyright and license header.

New Files

  • For choice of license, generally use the same license as other source files in the folder. If not, notify the code reviewer. Most code is GPL-2.0-or-later, but not all.
  • Use <Current Year> Blender Authors for copyright text.

Example: 

SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2024 Blender Authors

SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later

Editing Files

  • If Blender Authors copyright is not there, add a new line for it with the current year. Do not remove existing copyright text.
  • If it is already there and you have made significant changes, you can optionally extend the range to include the current year. But you are not required to. For example 2001-2024 Blender Authors.

Adapting Code

When adding code from other projects:

  • Check the license and find the matching identifier in doc/license/SPDX-license-identifiers.txt. If it's not listed there, discuss with the code reviewer if the code can be used.
  • Preserve the copyright text from the original file in a SPDX-FileCopyrightText header.
  • Add Blender Authors copyright if you modified the code.

Example: 

SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2009-2010 Sony Pictures Imageworks Inc., et al. All Rights Reserved.
SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2011-2022 Blender Authors

SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause

Adapted code from Open Shading Language.