Timeline for Legal Status of SPDX Headers
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
7 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 6, 2021 at 17:50 | comment | added | Martin_in_AUT | @bazza As you probably know, GPL is enforceable in many countries, Wikipedia lists some cases. As mentioned above, your best option is probably to have a plain text license statement and the SPDX identifier in each file. SPDX is around since 2010, so every 'person having ordinary skill in the art' of programming should be aware of the existence and will recognize it as an expression of the licensor's (=your) intention. | |
| Nov 5, 2021 at 10:41 | comment | added | bazza | I remember reading that Register article at the time; what a mess... | |
| Nov 5, 2021 at 10:37 | comment | added | bazza | Indeed. I guess it comes down to the default rights under copyright law. This page for the UK gov.uk/copyright states that all the rights remain with the author. So files separated from a license are, by default, not licensed to a third party in any way whatsoever. Flipped the other way, is a separate license.md file always adequate for a third party to rely on as a source of license T&C's? Or can a malicious developer claim that the projects files are not licensed, and their repo holding a copy of GPL3 is unrelated. Unlikely I'd say, but one does wonder. | |
| Nov 5, 2021 at 9:25 | comment | added | Martin_in_AUT | @bazza You can (unfortunately) not prevent that other -irresponsible- developers ignore your license determination, even if it is clearly written in each and every file. The only way to react to that is (when you identified inappropriate use of your file (a correct fork is always OK)) to notify the other developer and ask him to correct it. If you have backing from a corporation you can use a lawyer. But a simple letter or e-mail should suffice, because nobody will want to create another issue like we had with mimemagic | |
| Nov 5, 2021 at 8:56 | comment | added | bazza | It's not the text of the GPL license that I'm worried about, it's the practice of ignoring what it say developers must do to ensure that the license is enforceable. It's an assumption that a project is an indivisible collection of files (a "work"), but that seems pretty risky. If the files can be individually downloaded, then the project is divisible. With a project like GNURadio which builds a lot of libraries, it seems possible to have a portion of the project build something useful, without that portion containing any license terms at all. | |
| Aug 13, 2021 at 15:58 | review | Late answers | |||
| Aug 14, 2021 at 8:31 | |||||
| Aug 13, 2021 at 15:39 | history | answered | Martin_in_AUT | CC BY-SA 4.0 |