[License-discuss] plain text license versions?

[Johnny Solbu]

On Thursday 06 September 2012 21:14, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> 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.

But it force the user to have internet access in order to actually read the licence. There are many countries and places where internet access is for the priviliged few.

Besides, sometimes the license text changes. for example, 10 years ago the license located at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt was GPLv2. As of june 2007 it is GPLv3. Meaning that any gplv2 software that link to the licese at that location is now linking to the Wrong license.
Therefore at least one copy of the license text should always be included. One should Never depend on a license text beeing available online. The text can go away for whatever reason.

> This also avoids the duplication of text

On most distros they have a package containing common licenses, so one only have to package one copy of the license text, unless the license recuires that it be included.

-- 
Johnny A. Solbu
web site,   http://www.solbu.net
PGP key ID: 0xFA687324
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