Nicola Ken Barozzi wrote:
[snip details about licensing checks for Depot]
other ideas?
Is a requirement of Depot that the server-side must be plain http, or could it be a webapp?
Some random thoughts:
1. When a jar is requested, the server returns either text/plain text/xml or text/html license document.
To get the actual jar, the client must generate a digest of the stream and request the same URL, with
"?digest=975fa1833806a09060638e0ca83c95e5" to get the actual jar. If the stream contains a
random seed, the digest check couldn't be skipped (because the digest would be different each time).
The idea is that the client would display the license and the user would have to agree before the jar
was downloaded. The html could include an "I agree" button at the bottom, so for web users
only a simple web client would be needed.
2. The webapp could read the license file directly from the jar and make it "appear" to be next to
the jar (as per your item #2). This eliminates a potential management problem of keeping the
two files in sync.
3. Have you seen <http://creativecommons.org>? they have this nice idea of a license deed that is
easy to read. Again, if a webapp were used, you could provide a link next to each license file
that would display a summary of the key permissions, restrictions and requirements of the license.
I realise that web users aren't an important use-case for Depot, though.
-- Michael
