Re: [Savannah-hackers] submission of SLOCCount - savannah.nongnu.org (xyzzy)

[Elfyn McBratney]

Hello David,

On Sat, Jul 31, 2004 at 07:15:33PM -0400, David A. Wheeler wrote:
> > > Oy.  I presume there's some legal reason for that, right?
> > 
> > No.  Legally, you are not required to do this.  But we do require
> > that projects we host follow this convention.
> > 
> > > (I'm not a lawyer).  What's the rationale?
> > 
> > Doing so benefits anyone who who recieves your source code, in
> > that they know straight away from looking at the source that...
> 
> I'll do it, because I like you guys, but it does sound like
> unnecessary busywork to fill in somebody's checklist.
> Even the GPL text itself notes it's not necessary, 
> and I think the text I have already deals with the
> concerns you have.  I don't remember this
> requirement mentioned in the Savannah submission
> process; you should mention this, and a more specific
> rationale (more than a paraphrase of the text) for submitters.

Thank you.

In a way it is ticking it off the check list, but like I said before,
it's policy.

> Anyway, here's what I plan to add at the top of each
> file; let me know if this works for you:
> 
>     From SLOCCount, a suite of tools to count Source Lines of Code (SLOC)
>     Copyright (C) 2001-2004 David A. Wheeler http://www.dwheeler.com
> 
>     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>     it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
>     the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
>     (at your option) any later version.
>                                                                               
>   
>     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
>     but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
>     MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
>     GNU General Public License for more details.
>                                                                               
>   
>     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
>     along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
>     Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

That's fine.

> > For example, if someone sends a friend a source file from SLOCCount,
> > but from  looking at said source file, all they know is that it is
> > "Covered by the GNU GPL, version 2".  By adding permission to copy
> > statements, the user immediately knows that:
> > 
> >   1) The software is Free; and
> >   2) There are no warranties; and
> >   3) Should they need a copy of the license, they will know where
> >      to get it.
> 
> Which, in fact, they also know when they see "covered by the GNU GPL",
> since the GNU GPL also says those three things.

It's not certain.  What if, for example, the COPYING file somehow got
corrupted, and the user doesn't even know what the GPL is?  Then all
they will know is that the software is under a license called the GPL.
Disregarding the corrupted COPYING file, how does the user know to
check the COPYING file?

> But as I said, I'll do it cuz I like you guys.

One file (driver.h) doesn't have the permission-to-copy statements like
the others.  Would you mind changing that?  If so, I will (finally)
approve your project! :)

Best,
Elfyn

-- 
Elfyn McBratney
beu/irc.freenode.net

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