[Snowball-discuss] License file shipping required by BSD license

[Olly Betts]

On Fri, May 09, 2014 at 12:08:45PM +0100, Martin Porter wrote:
> Can this be right? We've been distributing the snowball code for the
> past 12 years without such a request being made, despite having dealt
> with various legal people, who have always been satisfied with our
> reassurances.
> 
> I would welcome guidance from the other snowball-discuss regulars
> here. Unfortunately I have little contact with Richard Boulton at the
> moment, who is very involved with his new work.

I actually suggested to Richard some time ago that it would be better to
include the licence details inside the source distribution.  I recall
he agreed, but I guess he hasn't got around to doing it yet.

I don't know if it's true that the current situation makes use illegal
though - my motivation was that it's what people expect, and that it
makes it easier for someone to clearly see what the licence is.

Currently if someone gave you a copy of the snowball sources, you'd have
to do a bit of sleuthing to find the snowball website and confirm the
file you have is the same as one which is available there (or worse,
if the snowball website was no longer online, you'd be unable to confirm
the licence).

Cheers,
    Olly