[cairo] COPYING files....

[Egbert Eich]

Sean Middleditch writes:
 > On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 11:00, Egbert Eich wrote:
 > > Sean Middleditch writes:
 > 
 > >  > easy embedding of COPYING notices can still have a license file (i.e.,
 > >  > if you have a lot of PNGs or something else, where you'd prefer not to
 > >  > embed huge text chunks), and for larger licenses (GPL) you only need to
 > >  > refer the user to the COPYING file in the copyright headers of files,
 > >  > versus copy the whole thing into the sources.
 > > 
 > > What if somebody goes ahead and changes the COPYING file behind your back?
 > 
 > If we're talking about a single piece of software, and not a huge
 > monolithic collection of disparate components, this shouldn't be an
 > issue.  If it is, you had better re-evaluate who you're letting have
 > access to your source control system.  ;-)
 > 

Not necessarily. I can think of several scenarios where a pointer to
a COPYING file can create undesired effects. This can for example happen
if someone takes and plugs it into another project or forks your project.
With a GPLed project this is much less likely to happen than with a MIT 
style license, that's why GPL'ed projects often do this.

 > 
 > >  > You don't need the copyright notice in the copying file; just the
 > >  > license.  Put the individual copyrights in the files themselves.  That
 > >  > way you don't need 100 contributors listed in your COPYING file.
 > >  > 
 > > 
 > > Yes, but I mentioned that in the MIT-style license the license text
 > > is often modified to hold the copyright holder's name. Please note
 > > that I wasn't talking about the GPL.
 > 
 > One can just put "Copyright holders and contributors" in the license and
 > not worry about.  Granted, I'm more used to the (new) BSD style license
 > than the wording of the MIT/X license.
 > 
 > And really, so far as autotools is concerned, you don't *need* to put
 > the license or copyright attributions in the COPYING file at all.  The
 > file isn't named COPYRIGHTS or LICENSE.  ;-)  Just stick a note in there
 > that the software is protected under copyright law, a note about which
 > licenses are in use in the project, and to read the individual files for
 > specific copyright and licensing terms, and get on with it.  The COPYING
 > file really isn't that big of a deal.  ~,^
 > 

Right. I merely tried to point out that some of the requirements automake
makes (without --foreign) are carefully designed for FSF projects. They
may be less practical or relevant for others.

Egbert.