svn commit: r192800 - in head/sys: cddl/compat/opensolaris/kern cddl/compat/opensolaris/sys cddl/contrib/opensolaris/common/acl cddl/contrib/opensolaris/uts/common/fs/zfs cddl/contrib/opensolaris/u...

[Robert Watson]

On Tue, 26 May 2009, M. Warner Losh wrote:

> : > Cute though this BSD license variation is, I'm pretty sure it's not on the
> : > approved license list.  Sticking to the standard license templates
> : > potentially saves significant trouble later -- especially when people
> :
> : Hmm, I'm sure that there exists some SVN magic which would allow
> : authors to enter something
> :
> : $BSDL2 Charlie Root 2008,2009$
> :
> : and it expands to a perfect boilerplate on checkout :)
>
> Yes, while possible, I'd argue against it.  With explicit boilerplate added 
> by the author, it is clear what the author's intentions are. The above 
> macro, it could be argued, may not be well understood enough by everyone 
> that a case could be made that it isn't a valid license grant...

Similar concerns here.  You certainly couldn't do the above without more 
formal paperwork between the project and individual developers so that placing 
the above became a specific license grant.  Also, if it required any SVN 
customization, you'd need to be *quite* sure that a copy of the source never 
escaped without the expansion.

Finally, the reason that folks like Apple, Sun, FSF, etc, use license 
references is that their licenses are *extremely* long.  You'll notice that 
when Apple (just for example) uses the BSD license, they actually put it at 
the top of each file.  One of the great virtues of the BSD license is its 
brevity...

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge