LICENSE documentation

[Vitaly Magerya]

On 2016-09-14 11:49, Kurt Jaeger wrote:
>> My interpretation of this phrase is not that LICENSE variable is
>> mandatory (to which I would object on the basis that ports licensing
>> framework is vague, incomplete, and apparently used by noone too), but
>> rather that for the program to be freely distributable at all, it's
>> author(s) need to explicitly give their permission. That permission is
>> the license. If no license statement can be found in the sources or the
>> website, then no permission is given, and it's technically illegal for
>> anyone but the author(s) to use the software.
> 
> This interpretation is based on the hypothesis
> that the user is located in a country that has this kind of legal rule.
> 
> This is not the case in every country, so your conclusion is not
> always valid.

That's true. Still, the inclusion of the program in ports collection
depends on author(s) giving their permission, otherwise users in
majority of countries FreeBSD is used in will be disqualified from using
it -- and FreeBSD would probably be liable for copyright infringement too.