Re: [Savannah-hackers-public] Licensing issues

[Noah Slater]

I'm not a Savannah hacker, but I will answer anyway.

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 11:01:44PM -0500, Nicodemo Alvaro wrote:
> The 'How To Get Your Project Approved Quickly' [1] article says "Use a license
> compatible with the GNU GPL, and use the 'or any later version' formulation
> for the GPL." The GPL license does not contain this text, the copying
> permission statement does though.
>
> I think it would be more appropriate if the article to said "that it is needed
> to have the words 'or any later version' formulation for the GPL, in the
> copying permission statement in all your source files."

I don't think the original text is confusing, but your update makes it a
requirement which I don't think is right.

> I think the article needs to define source files. Would non-compiling scripts,
> such as shell scripts, be described as source files. Most people wouldn't
> consider it because they are scripts. I am not sure all scripts are compiled,
> yes, bash has an interpreter, but is it needed for a script to have a license
> notice to it? Or should all sets of instructions to the computers be defined
> as source code? I guess input files, such as the makefile, would be different
> from that.

Anything that falls under the control of copyright counts, I would guess.

That includes scripts, Makefiles, even the ChangeLog.

Best,

-- 
Noah Slater, http://tumbolia.org/nslater