MIT copyrights in X.org source base...

Alan Coopersmith alan.coopersmith at sun.com
Tue Oct 10 18:29:43 PDT 2006


Jim Gettys wrote:
> I'm also troubled by the "both that copyright notice and this permission
> notice appear in supporting documentation" clause, though changing this
> may be more controversial.  I call this the "tree killer" clause.  At
> the time we drafted the MIT license, no one anticipated aggregate Linux
> distributions with thousands or tens of thousands of contributors.
> Technically, if you followed this to the letter, and distribute a
> printed document, you end up with much paper pulp covered with copyright
> statements; it doesn't matter in electronic form nearly so much: storage
> is cheap. I'm wondering if we should make the clause "both that
> copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting
> electronic documentation" to help save the planet.

Since the original license says "in supporting documentation" and not
"in *all* supporting documentation", is this really a problem?   As long
as it's in some form of supporting documentation, isn't that enough?
(Probably a question for the lawyers instead of us - maybe X.Org's contacts
  with the SFLC can ask them.)

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering



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