[FFmpeg-devel] libswscale/yuv2rgb_init.c license

[Uoti Urpala]

On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 12:26 +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 07:28:00PM +0300, Uoti Urpala wrote:
> > So you want to document the license in a (new) file of the same name to
> > make it more likely anyone looking at the history of the file notices
> > it? I'd suggest only writing an explanation of the license in the
> > temporary file instead of copying the whole contents of the old file
> > there. If anyone wants to resurrect the old file they should be able to
> > add the documented license header themselves.
> 
> I disagree.  Whoever should resurrect that file will most likely
> resurrect the last revision, so this revision should come with all the
> relevant information.

The last revision would be a short file explaining the license. Your
claim would mean they'd blindly resurrect that and leave out the code.
I'm pretty sure they'd read it instead.

> IMO all license-related issues should - as far as possible - not rely on
> people doing the right thing and taking extra steps.

That's not a practical guideline. Going "as far as possible" to do all
possible license-related work in advance in case someone would later
need it would be silly. Clearly documenting the license should be
enough, and a short file explicitly explaining it does that at least as
well as or better than another version of the file with different
license headers. If you start adding modified copies of files to the
history only for the purpose of allowing later users (with currently no
indication that it will be useful) to take that version directly without
editing then there are more relevant files you could add.