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On Friday 04 September 2009 16:01:41 Rémi Cardona wrote: |
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> For instance, I'm still working on migrating all the X11 packages to the |
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> "MIT" license (mainly for cleaning purposes), but in fact, each and |
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> every package should have its own license file (like today) because the |
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> MIT license requires that we acknowledge all major contributions to the |
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> code. Therefore, using a template like ${PORTAGE}/licences/MIT does is |
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> probably not a good idea from a legal point of view. |
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Is that really a problem? I admit to not being around for the original design |
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decisions, but I would assume that the purpose of having LICENSE in ebuilds |
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is to tell users what licence the package is under (whether or not it's |
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accurate is a different matter), and the purpose of having the licences |
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themselves in the tree is so that it's easy for users to look them up and |
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decide whether they want to accept the conditions or not. For that purpose, |
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the exact list of credits is irrelevant. Also, I'm not a lawyer, but I would |
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think that the licence's requirement for credit is satisfied by the credits |
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being included in the source code - it doesn't require acknowledgement when |
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merely talking about the software or stating the fact that it's under a |
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particular licence, just when distributing it. |