[OSM-dev] GPL stupidity

[Richard Fairhurst]

Gervase Markham wrote:

> It should be in the root directory of SVN. That's the normal  
> practice in
> other projects - the standard filename is "COPYING". If it's not, we
> should fix that.

Well, yes and no. Our repository contains many projects. For some of  
them (including Gosmore, Potlatch, and Frederik's contributions), the  
authors have chosen licences that are compatible with but are more  
permissive than the GPL:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22public+domain%22+site% 
3Asvn.openstreetmap.org
http://www.google.com/search?q=LGPL+site%3Asvn.openstreetmap.org

Others have chosen licences that may not be compatible with the GPL:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22creative+commons%22+site% 
3Asvn.openstreetmap.org

Having the GPL in the root directory (as, indeed, we currently do:  
http://svn.openstreetmap.org/LICENSE) means that the casual browser  
could be forgiven for thinking that the whole contents of svn are  
subject to the GPL's provisions. It would be more sensible to rename  
LICENSE to gpl.txt, and create a new file (LICENSE, COPYING, whatever  
you like) explaining that though the default licence for unattributed  
files is the GNU General Public License ("see gpl.txt"), other files  
may have their own more or less restrictive terms.

This is all a bit angels-on-a-pin anyway. :)

cheers
Richard