Re: [Repo-criteria-discuss] B2 for Gitlab?

[Mike Gerwitz]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 17:43:33 -0700, Aaron Wolf wrote:
> The term COPYING for this isn't even appropriate
> for several reasons. It seems from my view that LICENSE is the
> accurate, expected, clear term and would be even if we were starting
> from day one with no foundation. "COPYRIGHT LICENSE" would work too.

Copying is what copyright was created to restrict (prompted by the
invention of the printing press).  Copyleft is the hack on
copyright.  COPYING follows naturally.

I don't have the justification you're looking for; address@hidden or
rms might be able to answer it (you didn't CC rms on your original
reply; I'm not sure if that was intentional or not).  I'd be curious of
their answer.

In any case, this is and has been the recommendation for the use of the
GPL by the FSF/GNU.  It "should" be by virtue of their recommendation,
as the authors of the license, and by community convention.  That
convention is changing, but that charge is largely outside of the
community that created it.  LICENSE isn't any more or less valid, which
is why I say it's a minor point.  I expect to see COPYING in the same
way that I expect to see README and Makefile, whether the software was
written in the 1980s or the 2000s---that's what I was introduced to when
I first inspected much of the software on my GNU operating system.

There are places where I never expect to see COPYING, like web
development communities.  I also don't expect to see a Makefile either.

> especially when today tons of repos use the GPL itself in their
> LICENSE files.

Thus the discussion.


[0]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

-- 
Mike Gerwitz
Free Software Hacker | GNU Maintainer & Volunteer
https://mikegerwitz.com
FSF Member #5804 | GPG Key ID: 0x8EE30EAB

signature.asc
Description: PGP signature