suggestion for changing source code licensing preamble

suggestion for changing source code licensing preamble

[xah lee]

I noticed, that in just about all emacs programs on the web (elisp  
source code), it comes with this template text as its preamble:

;; 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 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at
;; your option) any later version.
;; This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
;; WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
;; MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
;; General Public License for more details.
;; You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
;; along with this program; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to
;; the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330,
;; Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.

Concerned parties and the FSF foundation, please remove the middle  
section of this template. That section is mainly for lawyers, for  
programers to protect themselves in the context of modern society's  
law system. Legally speaking, that section is redundant because it is  
in the GNU General Public License itself. The effect of that section  
in a license summary is fueling the habit and sanction of  
irresponsible programing we see all around us.

In place of that section, i'd propose possibly replacing it with the  
following or similar:

«This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful. The  
author(s) has responsibly produced it, and will take reasonable  
responsibilities with regards to the program's intended purpose and  
workability. For legal aspects of WARRANTY, please see the GNU  
General Public License for more details.»

Regarding these issues, i have written essays on them before. Please  
see:

Responsible Software Licensing
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html

Responsible Software Licensing & the Free Software Foundation
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license_FSF.html

   Xah Lee
   xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/


☄

Re: suggestion for changing source code licensing preamble

[Richard Stallman]

We use this text based on lawyers' advice, and we will not change it
except based on advice from our lawyers.