missing copyright statement in `select2-bootstrap.css`

Question

missing copyright statement in `select2-bootstrap.css`

onlyjob opened this issue 8 years ago · 7 comments

Please add copyright statement to select2-bootstrap.css.

Thanks.

Answer 1 · 2016-06-01T15:31:36.000Z

@kevin-brown I guess that explicitly mentioning the license as Select2 itself does in its readme should suffice. If so, could you please check the current select2-bootstrap-theme license and let me know if this is okay like it is or if I should change something?

Answer 2 · 2016-06-01T21:37:54.000Z

After a second, more thorough read: @onlyjob could you clarify why you need the copyright in select2-bootstrap.css? Not too familiar with the legal things. Would a link to the license (like Select2 itself does) be okay?

Answer 3 · 2016-06-06T07:48:51.000Z

I hope this is resolved in v0.1.0-beta.5 with adding the Copyright and License information to the README.

Answer 4 · 2016-06-06T10:27:51.000Z

why you need the copyright in select2-bootstrap.css

Best practice. This CSS file is often (re-)distributed by other projects. Copyright statement is important to document ownership (i.e. who grants the license).

Would a link to the license (like Select2 itself does) be okay?

No, they are doing it wrong. First of all they call license "MIT" which is ambiguous. FSF recommends calling it "Expat".
Secondly they do not use canonical URL of the license: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

Finally text of license is short and it is arguably better to include full text of the license accompanied by copyright statement.

Committed LICENSE file documents copyright and license perfectly. However because CSS file is often bundled with other software I recommend to include copyright statement to CSS file as well.

Thank you.

See more:

http://www.producingoss.com/en/license-quickstart.html

Answer 5 · 2016-06-06T14:27:15.000Z

Thanks for the info @onlyjob! Maybe @kevin-brown can chime in and we can fix this for both this and the main Select2 repository?

Answer 6 · 2016-06-06T15:00:10.000Z

This CSS file is often (re-)distributed by other projects. Copyright statement is important to document ownership (i.e. who grants the license).

I'm going to agree that not including a banner in the distributed CSS files was an oversight in the main project which still needs to be fixed. I'm not sure about the need for the copyright statement (though I don't see anything wrong with not including it), as that should ideally be covered in the linked license.

First of all they call license "MIT" which is ambiguous. FSF recommends calling it "Expat".

This ambiguity should be resolved by following the link to the license and verifying the text is accurate and complete. As much as I appreciate the FSF attempting to resolve ambiguity by calling it "Expat", this can be resolved by looking at the license text (which people should be doing anyway).

Secondly they do not use canonical URL of the license: https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT

That's the license template, not the actual license file.

Answer 7 · 2016-06-06T18:18:16.000Z

That's the license template, not the actual license file.

This is canonical text of the license, contrary to maybe-customised (altered) license file which may not be included. Link to authoritative OSI approved text of the license + copyright statement is the best for situations when including full text of the license is not desirable. Also It may be useful to mention URL of the project (backlink).