GPL license reference and verbatim copies

[Gennaro Prota]

Hi everybody,

after digging into the GPL text and several online resources I
couldn't find an answer to this simple question:

In 'How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs', there's a
paragraph starting with:

   "To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It
   is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to
   most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file
   should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where
   the full notice is found."

Now, the above is after the "END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS" sentence,
so it seems to me it is not required to use that exact text to refer
to the license. Am I right? The text itself also seems to allude to
the possibility to use just a "pointer to the notice". There are two
reasons I'm asking: a) I'd like to use a shorter reference text and
eliminate the "(C)" symbol b) I'm licensing a collection of libraries
and components; technically the term "program" (with a lowercase 'p',
by the way; so the definition in bullet 0 (zero) doesn't apply) isn't
appropriate. My preference would be for something like:

  This file is part of Breeze C++ [the name of my project]. Breeze
  C++ is free software; you can... etc.

  Breeze C++ is distributed in the hope that...

  You should have received a copy [...] with *this software*.

I suppose that, by distinguishing "Breeze C++" (the collection) from
"this software" (any software which might be distributed together
with the collection but possibly having itself another, compatible,
license) the text above is also better in a scenario where the
collection is distributed together with, say, MIT-licensed software
or others.


PS: I have another little curiosity. Looking for instance at the KDE
repository I see they have changed the FSF address in the COPYING
file:


<http://websvn.kde.org/trunk/koffice/COPYING?rev=490579&r1=151554&r2=490579>

Though the copy which is now at

 <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt>

has the correct (new) address I wonder what happens for old source
files, in whatever project, that report the old address but claim
that COPYING actually contains a "verbatim" copy of the GPL text.

--
Gennaro Prota


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