On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Benson Margulies <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 7:03 PM, Leo Simons <[email protected]> wrote: >> More legal stuff...on reproducing licenses and notices.... > > Since The Official Release is the source, and the binary releases are > 'just for convenience', do we really need to apply all the same > fine-tooth-comb treatment?
Of course! A lot of open source licensing is about "things you have to do when you (re)distribute". In a binary release with libraries inside, apache is (re)distributing those libraries, so those license terms kick in, and we simply have to follow them. And a lot of the obligation that comes with those licenses is about reproducing licenses and notices. The only alternative is not to redistribute those libraries, which puts the burden of figuring out the legal mess on the user (and so makes the binary "less convenient" for them!). Finally, do remember that _normally_ you would update the binary release LICENSE and NOTICE when you updated its build scripts to include another dependency, so this painful legal cleanup/scrubbing should really be a once-only event. cheers, Leo
