Re: COPYING tabs vs whitespaces

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 8, 2016, 17:28 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqfux39kmz.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <56B85ECE.4020607@redhat.com>

Petr Stodulka <pstodulk@redhat.com> writes:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On 4.2.2016 20:15, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Petr Stodulka <pstodulk@redhat.com> writes:
>> 
>>> I found that license file COPYING is different as compared with
>>> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt If I pass over with
>>> Linus's preamble, change is only about whitespaces - tabs
>>> vs. space.  Probably it's minor non-essential change, but some
>>> projects do this change, so rather I ask about that.
>> 
>> Interesting.  I cannot quite connect "some projects do this change"
>> and "so rather I ask".  Are you asking why this project changed it?
>
> Nope. I apologize for my czenglish. It means: From my colleagues I hear,
> that some projects had same differences (tabs vs. spaces) in their copy
> of the license file and they make it later equivalent with the one in
> gnu.org.

I'd guess that these projects (among which Linux kernel still has these indentation the same as the copy we have) and we independently obtained the COPYING file from GNU in some past, and back then the copy at GNU was indented that way--which later was changed.

The Wayback Machine supports this theory.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070713225446/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

i.e. the FSF copy back in 2007-07 indented these section headers with tabs, so those projects that obtained this copy would have their sections indented with tabs.

At 703601d6 (Update COPYING with GPLv2 with new FSF address, 2010-01-15), we did a fresh update directly from the URL you cited above to primarily replace the addresses of the FSF office.

https://web.archive.org/web/20100105100239/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.txt

matches what we use (minus Linus's preamble, of course).

The file before that change was what Linus copied from Linux kernel project. The kernel project did their equivalent change at their b3358a11 ([PATCH] update FSF address in COPYING, 2005-09-10), and the log message says http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt was used.

The Wayback Machine agrees.

https://web.archive.org/web/20050901115237/http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt

i.e. the FSF copy back in 2005-09 matches what the kernel uses (again, minus Linus's preamble).

> So I ask rather here / point out this difference, if you know
> about that or you want to have same one.

So the answers are:

 - No, I didn't personally know about the differences, and I suspect
   nobody particularly cared.

 - Not really, unless the difference has more substance.  For an
   example of an update with substance, the update we did in 2010
   had not just the FSF address change but also updated the fully
   spelled name of LGPL from Library to Lesser.

You may want to bug the kernel folks to update their copy; they still spell it as Library General Public License.