[Surfraw-devel] Questions: -quiet & copyright junk

[Ian Beckwith]

On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 06:39:07PM -0600, Ivy Foster wrote:
> Hey, surfraw-devel,
> 
> Is the -quiet switch just kept around in case an elvis author wants to use it?
> Some quick grepping indicates that it's not actually used in any elvi or in the
> main surfraw code itself. Just curious.

I think it was just a legacy of the original code, only used
in the long-commented-out line:

#    ifno SURFRAW_quiet && echo "Thank you for supporting the Shell Users' Revolutionary Front Rage Rage Against the Web"

I've removed it.

> Also, I'm never really clear on how exactly copyright works, but do the dates
> in COPYING, the -help message, etc., need to be updated? Or can that be
> sidestepped due to sr's being in the public domain?

Ah, yes, I've updated it.

I am not remotely a lawyer, but if I'm right, the licensing of surfraw
is a little bogus. Aside from the fact that some territories don't allow
you to place things in the public domain (e.g. Germany, apparently),
we are claiming it is in the public domain, but also asserting
copyright, which is a contradiction.

The right thing to do is probably to relicense it or dual license it to
a permissive license like the MIT/BSD license. As well as fixing PD
problems, it would also disclaim liability.

Maybe something like:

: This code is in the Public Domain.
: If you need a license other than Public Domain,
: then consider it under the BSD License:
: <3 clause BSD license text>

Any thoughts? It's probably not worth worrying about, to be honest.

Incidently, the bookfinder isbn test is broken. The site doesn't seem to
actually mention the *title* of the book searched for anymore. I assume
this is an error at their end, so I've left it for now.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Beckwith - ianb at erislabs.net - http://erislabs.net/ianb/
GPG fingerprint: AF6C C0F1 1E74 424B BCD5  4814 40EC C154 A8BA C1EA
Listening to: Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra - There Is A Light
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