Thanks Doug.
I'd be interested if you wanted to expand on why you like that license.
Is it anything other than what I could glean from a layman's reading of
the text?
That Apache license page is puzzling to me, no doubt due to my
inexperience in such matters.
Why does the boilerplate attached to every file contain a partial,
reworded version of clause 7 of the license, but not of any other
clauses? Why is this copy reworded? Are the rewordings legally
significant? If so, what do the differences mean, if not, why are they
there? Presumably only a lawyer is qualified to answer.
Presumably the ':::text' boilerplate prefix just an erroneous markup snafu?
Jonathan
On 10/09/13 10:02, Doug Winter wrote:
On 09/09/13 19:53, Russel Winder wrote:
Sadly, although it would be nice to have a file that says it applies
to all files and so be very DRY, this will not work in UK and USA
law, possibly also other jurisdictions. The licence statement has to
be in each and every individual file since in UK and USA law each
file is deemed a separate work. If you check FSF and other FOSS
licence places they will set this out as the process because of this
problem. Some IDEs even have plugins to sort this out for you!
This.
There have been many, many cases of open source projects with valid
LICENSE files that turn out to have a couple of files from somewhere
else that are not appropriately licensed. I don't know if anyone
remembers the mplayer saga on debian-legal, for example.
By putting a (c) statement and license summary in every file you are
removing the risk from someone who uses your code that they are going
to end up in a difficult position later. Google are being reasonable
in protecting themselves here.
Although getting licensing right is amazingly dull, it is relatively
easy if you use a good license just follow the instructions provided
with it.
FWIW, personally I recommend the Apache License 2.0 as the best
license available right now (if you don't care about copylefting), and
it has very clear instructions in the appendix:
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
That notice should be included in every file, because each is a
potentially independent work.
Cheers,
Doug.
--
Jonathan Hartley tart...@tartley.com http://tartley.com
Made of meat. +44 7737 062 225 twitter/skype: tartley
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