[License-discuss] plain text license versions?

[Karl Fogel]

"Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen at rosenlaw.com> writes:
>I'd count that as another reason *not* to provide plain text license
>files. I think it would be FAR more useful to have a simple license
>statement in the source tree of each program that points to the
>OFFICIAL version of that license on the OSI website. This also avoids
>the duplication of text -- with potential transcription or legal
>errors -- in many source code trees, and completely avoids the need to
>actually read the licenses if one trusts OSI.

We don't have a choice about whether plain text licenses are shipped
in program source trees.  That's going to happen.

We *do* have some influence over whether those plain text versions are
consistent, canonical, and correct.  Therefore, etc, etc.

I hope this makes my point clearer :-).

-Karl