Re: [ms] Add a standard glyph name for hooked o instead of relying on .AM?

[G. Branden Robinson]

Hi Dorai,

I'm replying to both you and the list because what I have to ask you is
important.  I used to work in software licensing compliance
professionally, so perhaps I am extra paranoid.

At 2021-01-14T06:05:41+0000, Dorai Sitaram via wrote:
> Absolutely, do add whatever license is needed; and modify what I have
> (both code and documentation) to suit groff's standards. My repo is
> purely temporary and meant to ferry the code to you better than email
> can.

It would be my preference for you to select a license and add it to your
Git repository.  You don't need to worry about writing some
RFC-compliant or Debian-machine-readable-copyright-file-conformant
document[1]; what matters is that your intention be clear.  I don't want
anyone (at the FSF or elsewhere) to have any concern that your
contribution was plucked off the Web by GNU and slapped with a copyright
notice and license after the fact by someone who was not you.

I know some people really dislike dealing with this stuff, so if you
want my recommendation, then I suggest a permissive MIT-style license.
I am a dedicated copyleftist but I don't see an advantage for a copyleft
in this case; the translation table material (the character definition
list) is only marginally copyrightable in the first place in my opinion.
We're encouraging the adoption of a (draft) standard here, so as with
Ogg Vorbis decoders and an-ext.tmac, I think it tactically sound to take
the excuses and irrational fears of anti-copyleftists off the table.

I suggest what the SPDX License List calls "the MIT License"[2].

Here's an example.

        Copyright (c) 2021 Dorai Sitaram

        Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
        obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
        files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
        restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
        copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or
        sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
        Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
        conditions:

        The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including
        the next paragraph) shall be included in all copies or
        substantial portions of the Software.

        THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
        EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
        OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
        NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
        HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
        WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
        FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
        OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

If you can put that in a "COPYRIGHT" file in your repository, I think
that will be clear enough.

Naturally, if anyone would care to dispute a point, please speak up.
It's been years since I had a copyright argument to get my blood flowing
and keep me feeling young.  :P

Regards,
Branden

[1] https://dep-team.pages.debian.net/deps/dep5/
[2] https://spdx.org/licenses/MIT.html

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