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On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 08:10:06 +0200 |
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Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote: |
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> > Should LICENSE changes require a revision bump? |
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> |
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> No, since it would be a waste of users' resources. |
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> |
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> For example, if a dev has missed a change from GPL-2 to GPL-3 (which I |
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> guess is a common case), would you really have users reinstall the |
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> package in this case? What would be the benefit? |
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As an example, the user is developing a program under a licence |
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compatible with GPL-3 but incompatible with GPL-2, he wants to extend |
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it with the functionality provided by this library (lets assume the |
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package in question is a library) and he is considering to statically |
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link some bits from it. |
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Now he can do the right way and read the whole web page from that |
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package and learn all about it and all the other candidates, or just |
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first apply a quick filter by checking the LICENCE file and then decide |
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to look for another candidate. |
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I personally would would go with the filtering approach to narrow my |
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search and reduce the time I need to spend looking. |
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As Another example, the user might statically link bits of the exact |
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same library against a GPL-2 (not a GPL-2 or latter) program, just |
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because he is misinformed by portage that the program is GPL-2 and then |
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he gets into a legal problem. |
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so, my point is that licences are very important in some environments |
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and to some people, and having an inconsistently can cause serious |
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legal problems to users. So it is very important to keep them in sync |
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in all tree of upstream, portage tree and vdb tree. |
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Yuri. |
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