Create the license files

To use a new license, you need to define two content files :

- the header file (this content will be added in header of all source files) - the license file (this file is the real license file placed at the root of the maven project in (by convention) LICENSE.txt file.

• src/license/my_license/header.txt

  Example for GPLv3 :

  This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
  it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
  published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the
  License, or (at your option) any later version.
  
  This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
  but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
  MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
  GNU General Public License for more details.
  
  You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
  License along with this program.  If not, see
  <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html>.
  

• src/license/my_license/license.txt

  Example for GPLv3 :

                      GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
                         Version 3, 29 June 2007
  
   Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc. <http://fsf.org/>
   Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
   of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
  
                              Preamble
  
    The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for
  software and other kinds of works.
  
  ...
  
    The GNU General Public License does not permit incorporating your program
  into proprietary programs.  If your program is a subroutine library, you
  may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with
  the library.  If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Lesser General
  Public License instead of this License.  But first, please read
  <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html>.
  
  

Declare the new license

The new license(s) must be declared in the file : src/license/licenses.properties. One license per line like :

    my_license=My license

The default (convention) configuration use header.txt and license.txt as file names for the header and license file.

This can be changed using this syntax in the license repository definition file like this

    my_license=My license~~license:licenseFileName.html~~header:headerFileName.html

In this example, you have then to define a licenseFileName.html and headerFileName.html file in the my_license directory.

Configure the plugin

You need to specify the name of your license and where to find it.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>license-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.0</version>
    <configuration>
        <licenseName>my_license</licenseName>
        <licenseResolver>${project.baseUri}/src/license</licenseResolver>
    </configuration>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>first</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>update-file-header</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>process-sources</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

or

<properties>
    <license.licenseName>my_license</license.licenseName>
    <license.licenseResolver>${project.baseUri}/src/license</license.licenseResolver>
</properties>

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
    <artifactId>license-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.0</version>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>first</id>
            <goals>
                <goal>update-file-header</goal>
            </goals>
            <phase>process-sources</phase>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Using a license resolver from classpath

Since version 1.3, it is possible to use a license resolver from classpath (means included into a jar or any dependency of the plugin dependencies).

Just use the classpath:// protocol in the plugin configuration.

Imagine you have a license resolver in an artifact com.my:extraLicenseResolvers:1.0 in package foo.bar

Next example show how to use this license resolver from classpath:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>license-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.4.0</version>
  <configuration>
      <licenseName>my_license</licenseName>
      <licenseResolver>classpath://foo/bar</licenseResolver>
  </configuration>
  <executions>
      <execution>
          <goals>
              <goal>update-file-header</goal>
          </goals>
          <phase>process-sources</phase>
      </execution>
  </executions>
  <dependencies>
      <dependency>
          <groupId>com.my</groupId>
          <artifactId>extraLicenseResolvers</artifactId>
          <version>1.0</version>
      </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</plugin>

Using templates in license files

Since version 1.6, license and header content files can be parametrized using FreeMarker template engine.

To do so, just add .ftl extension to license or header file, you don't need to change the licenseRepository definition, the plugin will always try (if not found with default file name to search with an extra .ftl extension).

Here is the list of all available properties in such templates:

  all system properties with prefix env_
  all project properties with prefix project_
  project (maven project)
  projectName (plugin projectName parameter)
  organizationName (plugin organizationName parameter)
  copyright.firstYear (plugin inceptionYear parameter) (*)
  copyright.lastYear (computed currentYear (or null if equals to firstYear)) (*)
  copyright.years (computed years range (if lastYear different from firstYear))
  copyright.holder (plugin copyrightOwners or organizationName parameter)
  extraTemplateParameters (plugin extraTemplateParameters parameter with prefix extra_)

(*) This are numbers, so use the ?c to not have a localized representation of the number.