Is it possible to add a license after the fact?

Question

Copyright

Hello!
I have a question about Open Source (probably).
I have a project. Basically, this is code for Arduino.
I put the project on github.
And just now I suddenly realized that usually a license is added to the project, etc.
And now I have a bunch of questions:
Can I add a license (for example, LGPL) and push it to github as a separate commit?
Or do I need to bang all the turnips and re-upload the source, but already with a license? :)
How do they generally act in such cases?

Answer 1

IANAL, TINLA.
> Can I add a license (eg LGPL) and push it to github as a separate commit?
Why not?
> Or do I need to bang all the turnips and re-post the source, but already with a license? :)
Lord, why? O_o
> How do they generally act in such cases?
How stupid. And it is necessary to arrive according to the instruction [0].
[0] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.ru.html
Tell us plainly what are you afraid of? That nonsense that vism is talking about - why without the magic word "Copyright" your work ends up in the public domain?
Three decades ago, this was canceled in the United States, and they switched to a worldwide rule that the author's monopoly captures any work from its birth (including those not made public at all) against the will of the author. It is even impossible to explicitly abandon it in most countries of the world (including, it seems, in all the former republics of the USSR).
But there is no need to refuse it, it is much better, as you are absolutely right, to issue a free license. It's never too late to do this.

Answer 2

Yes, you can. It's just a strange question. Now your repository is licensed from the current commit. In principle, no one bothers you to ask for a license and for commits earlier.
The only thing is that the git automatically does not know how to pick up licenses.

Answer 3

Previous commits will not be licensed.
That is, no one will stop you from forking a commit without a license and using it freely