Re: Choosing a License: GNU APL? AFL 3.0?
On Jan 1, 2008 10:39 AM, Francesco Poli wrote:
> (typo: my name is Francesco, not Francisco...)
Argh, sorry. Too much Hamlet!
I've expanded the article this morning, and corrected the typo.
> You think that these clauses only apply to copyright
> notices that are placed *above* the license text, while
> giving permission to strip or alter isolated copyright
> notices that are near a line that just refers to the
> license text. Did I get what you mean?
Yep.
> I'm not convinced that this is the case.
> Firstoff, does the law allow removing or altering appropriate
> copyright notices? I don't think so, but I'll leave this argument
> to real lawyers...
The argument against this is that some licenses, all those that have a
Y in Column B of my survey, require this explicitly and some don't.
None, however, qualify it in terms of a universal restriction that the
licenses are simply reminding you of.
This is the heuristic argument I used with myself in lieu of being a
lawyer. In fact, I didn't think about it much—it just seemed like
common sense to me.
At the very least, a license that makes this point explicit makes me
feel better that a requirement I care about is going to be noticed by
people using my software.
> Secondly, I think that the license text says "the above copyright
> notice" just because it is designed to be included verbatim in
> each file.
People don't include it verbatim in each file, though. James Clark
doesn't do that in Expat, for example!
"See the file copying.txt for copying permission."
- e.g. expat/xmlparse/xmlparse.c
The requirement text in the Expat license is:
"The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software."
The *nature* of required inclusion isn't elucidated upon.
> if you prefer placing the license text in a centralized file (e.g.:
> LICENSE.txt) and just put copyright notices (+ a line pointing
> to the centralized file) in each source file, that's just a matter
> of practical convenience
But then the license only requires that the copyright notice and the
permission notice be preserved, which means the LICENSE.txt file.
> I don't think that this could alter the meaning of the license, which
> mandates the preservation of copyright notices...
No, it says the "above copyright notice and this permission notice"
only. When you're using a LICENSE.txt file, that means the content of
the LICENSE.txt file only. It doesn't say anything about anything
else.
> Disclaimers: IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP.
Same here! :-)
--
Sean B. Palmer, http://inamidst.com/sbp/
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