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On 23/08/2011 23.24, David Given wrote:
I discovered recently there's actually an unpleasant ambiguity in the MIT license. Specifically, this line:The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.The problem is that it doesn't specify whether the clause applies to *source* distributions only, or to *binary* distributions as well. In other words, if I build Lua into a program of mine, and distribute the program as an executable, am I required to include the copyright notice with the program? In even more other words, is the license equivalent to the one-clause BSD license or the two-clause BSD license? I've shaken the 'net and it always comes up 'reply hazy, try again later'. Some people say yes, some say no. What's the intent of the Lua authors here --- do you want attribution in binaries or not?
I once had the same doubt about it [1] and the reply was affirmative, i.e. the attribution should be made also in a binary distribution. But from the answer I got [2] it seems a short notice would suffice.
>(I do notice you say on the Licensing page on the
website 'you should give us credit by including the appropriate copyright notice somewhere in your product or its documentation', but that's not *quite* the same thing.) Do you feel this ambiguity is worth worrying about? (For reference, this link: http://urchin.earth.li/~twic/The_Amazing_Disappearing_BSD_License.html ...documents all the various forms of the BSD license, plus a couple of the MIT.)
-- Lorenzo [1] http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2010-10/msg00240.html [2] http://lua-users.org/lists/lua-l/2010-10/msg00244.html