It depends on how the license was intended to be applied.<p>If you&#x27;re the sole owner and declare the entire repository contents under XYZ, the previous commits would be available under the license, regardless of the actual commit that adds the license file.  If you declare a specific revision under XYZ, then only that revision is under the license.<p>A different example is the case of a repository with many copyright holders changing the license, and not being able to drag all the previous code into the newly licensed version.  You wouldn&#x27;t be able to take all the commits in history under the terms of the new license.