new license to review

Signal 11 signal11 at mediaone.net
Fri May 7 16:26:16 UTC 1999


Mark Rafn wrote:
> You _CAN_ probably demand that all versions including modified ones with a
> different name include a custom header like:
>   X-Server-Copyright: Based on WebFoo (c) 1999 Foo Inc. http://www.foo.com
> This would be no different than the requirement that interactive programs
> display GNU copyright when the output format isn't a necessary part of the
> program.  Of course, it _IS_ an extra few dozen bytes with each request,
> and it's going to annoy some people.

Those same people probably have never seen how much garbage headers IE4 sends
out. ;)  Seriously though, why not just have it print a version number / info
line when you start the program?  Many (most?) GNU programs do this. 

Also, http headers send the server name/version by default.. so modifying
it to say (patched by god at heaven.org) after the version string wouldn't be
hard.  Would that break any programs?

I have no problems with putting the copyright..

a) in the headers of the source
b) short one-liners or "for licensing info, press F3"
c) auto-generated "version strings" attached to output files
d) message on startup.

----

I'm more concerned with seeing some kind of "shareware" virus coming
into the community.  Very concerned.


-- 
Signal 11



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