Handle MIT and other Free Software Licenses correctly #194

New Issue

dipohl · 2017-10-01T10:48:00Z

dipohl commented

2017-10-01 10:48:00 +00:00

As Fabian already addressed in his answer to the campaign announcement mail on discussion list the obligations of the MIT License are not fulfilled in setup of the boostrap component here on the website.

The MIT License says:

"The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software."

So - instead of only pointing to the License file at github - the text should be included in the files directly e.g. in:

It would also be good to place a copy of all relevant License files on the website so that links can refer to the local files and this way get sure that their content will not get modified or license files being deleted during time, which can be the case when using external links.

I see a lot of similiar license issues concerning the files in directory https://git.fsfe.org/pmpc/website/src/master/site/static/js which refer to multiple different licenses.

I know caring for these things is inconvenient but as advocacy group for FREE software the FSFE should take this task very serious and set a good example!

Perhaps you can recruit some people from the Legal Network to support with reviews for QA?

As Fabian already addressed in [[https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2017-September/011901.html|his answer to the campaign announcement mail on discussion list]] the obligations of the MIT License are not fulfilled in setup of the boostrap component here on the website. The [[https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/master/LICENSE|MIT License]] says: > "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in > all copies or substantial portions of the Software." So - instead of only pointing to the License file at github - the text should be included in the files directly e.g. in: * https://publiccode.eu/js/bootstrap.min.js * https://publiccode.eu/css/bootstrap.min.css It would also be good to place a copy of all relevant License files on the website so that links can refer to the local files and this way get sure that their content will not get modified or license files being deleted during time, which can be the case when using external links. I see a lot of similiar license issues concerning the files in directory https://git.fsfe.org/pmpc/website/src/master/site/static/js which refer to multiple different licenses. I know caring for these things is inconvenient but as advocacy group for FREE software the FSFE should take this task very serious and set a good example! Perhaps you can recruit some people from the [[https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html|Legal Network]] to support with reviews for QA?

max.mehl commented

2017-10-09 20:36:20 +00:00

Thanks for the elaborated suggestion and analysis, and sorry for not coming back to you earlier, I've been on vacation.

I think we can use this as an opportunity to test our REUSE guidelines and the example repo Jonas set up.

Thanks for the elaborated suggestion and analysis, and sorry for not coming back to you earlier, I've been on vacation. I think we can use this as an opportunity to test our [REUSE guidelines](https://reuse.software/) and the [example repo](https://git.fsfe.org/reuse/included-hello/) Jonas set up.

carmenbianca commented

2018-01-26 13:42:33 +00:00

I've had a look at this now. While it would be good to make this project REUSE compliant, the REUSE recommendations aren't super relevant here or for the user-facing portion of web development.

Now, specifically the bootstrap.min.js comment header: This is an upstream issue. The Bootstrap developers release the exact bootstrap.min.js file that we host, with the sub-par comment header. In effect, the Bootstrap developers do not follow their own licence:

While we could edit the comment header to include the licence text, I am against this for two reasons:

It is extremely ill-advised to edit licensing and copyright headers of material that you have not authored.
One could easily argue that linking to the licence used is more than sufficient in a web environment, where everything already relies on hyperlinks. This is not ideal, far from it, but neither is needlessly fixing upstream's nonsense.

As for the other js files: Yeah, that's a bit of a mess. As I understand it, it is being worked on.

I've had a look at this now. While it would be good to make this project REUSE compliant, the REUSE recommendations aren't super relevant here or for the user-facing portion of web development. Now, specifically the bootstrap.min.js comment header: This is an upstream issue. The Bootstrap developers release the exact bootstrap.min.js file that we host, with the sub-par comment header. In effect, the Bootstrap developers do not follow their own licence: - https://getbootstrap.com/ - https://getbootstrap.com/dist/js/bootstrap.min.js While we _could_ edit the comment header to include the licence text, I am against this for two reasons: - It is extremely ill-advised to edit licensing and copyright headers of material that you have not authored. - One could easily argue that linking to the licence used is more than sufficient in a web environment, where everything already relies on hyperlinks. This is not ideal, far from it, but neither is needlessly fixing upstream's nonsense. As for the other js files: Yeah, that's a bit of a mess. As I understand it, it is being worked on.

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