All licences are equal, but some are more equal than others

nicholas on 2007-02-26T12:11:48

The Ministry of Truth has been active. I find this unsettling:

--- regex-0.12/COPYING	Sun Jun  2 21:03:17 1991
+++ ed-0.4/COPYING	Thu May 12 09:01:24 2005
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 		       Version 2, June 1991
 
  Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
-                          675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
+    51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
  Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
  of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
 
@@ -279,7 +279,7 @@
 
 		     END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
 
-	Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
+	    How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
 
   If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest
 possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it
@@ -291,7 +291,7 @@
 the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
 
     
-    Copyright (C) 19yy  
+    Copyright (C)   
 
     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
     it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
@@ -305,14 +305,15 @@
 
     You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
     along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
-    Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
+    Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
+
 
 Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
 
 If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
 when it starts in an interactive mode:
 
-    Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
+    Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
     Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
     This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
     under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.


Why?

jtrammell on 2007-02-26T13:09:38

None of the changes are significant. The new FSF mailing address? Removing "19yy" as the template for the year? I don't get it.

Re:Why?

nicholas on 2007-02-28T23:48:11

I agree that they're not significant changes. But I don't like the fact that they have made changes to the document without any of

  • noting in the document that changes have been made
  • changing the version number of the document
  • serving the document from a different URL
It may well be administrative oversight, but I'm not comfortable with a system that lets the public master copy of one of the most important documents on the Internet get changed, without any clear indication that it's been changed.

These changes are minor and innocent. But if minor innocent changes can slip by, so, potentially, can minor less-than-innocent changes.

I dunno...

sigzero on 2007-02-26T19:19:21

It is very nice of them to tell me how to do this:

  If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this
when it starts in an interactive mode:

- Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
+ Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
          Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
          This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
          under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.