Re: COPYING tabs vs whitespaces

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 4, 2016, 19:15 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqsi18i8xv.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <56B32BDA.4010909@redhat.com>

Petr Stodulka <pstodulk@redhat.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> 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?

After running "diff" between the two, I think the changes are only on the indented section title lines, and "git blame" tells us that the section title lines in the copy we have has always been that way since Linus added to it at 075b845a (Add a COPYING notice, making it explicit that the license is GPLv2., 2005-04-11).

So, perhaps the copy Linus got originally had leading runs of spaces that are multiples-of-8-long unexpanded to leading tabs back then, or perhaps he did that unexpanding himself.