On 03/10/2017 11:18 PM, Alexander Burger wrote: > Hi Christopher, > >> Hello list. I'm having a lot of fun with picolisp, doing practice >> problems and working with different codes. > > Great! :)
I'll be uploading all my own codes for git access as soon as my project request clears Savannah Non-GNU. > > >> One concern I have though is >> that most of the files in the Picolisp 16.12 release do not have proper >> license labeling. For legal safety and to avoid confusion, we need to >> have at least *every source code* file in the release labeled at the top > > Uuuhh! This is one of the last things I would like to have. Every unnecessary > line is one too much! I hate such noise. Also, patching the sources now would > be > a disaster for file metadata. > > *Who* has any problems with the current state? > > ♪♫ Alex > To borrow a quote from stackexchange: " The problem is that it's very easy to dis-aggregate a single source code file from its larger project, such as someone just checking out, emailing, downloading one file, without the rest that contains the full copyright. And then that file can get passed along ad-infinitum into time, to Nth parties who may have no idea of the files origins. The copyright notice at the top reminds anyone who runs across that lone file that it is in fact copyrighted, not public domain, and thus some license may or may not be involved in its distribution or use. Versus letting the finder make their own random assumptions. " In my case, the most likely situation is that I would make a GPL'd project that incorporates the picolisp interpreter source code, with new files containing the GPL notices but old files still containing the original licensing information. A more concrete example: Recently I have been hacking the emacs mode elisp code that comes with picolisp release, to add my own preferred functionality (shortly to be released). Of course, those elisp files do actually have license information included. But I could potentially hack other parts of the release as well. An alternative to putting the full license in each file would be to use a SPDX License Identifier. I think in your case this one-liner comment would work for most files: SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT That would match with https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html. -- https://qlfiles.net -- UNSUBSCRIBE: mailto:picolisp@software-lab.de?subject=Unsubscribe
