Licenses

[Don Stewart]

markl:
> I took a look at the licenses for the included projects.
> 
> They are all, but one, BSD3-like, though there are several minor variants of the actual license text.
> 
> The exception is syb which is part BSD3, and two parts which are based on the Haskell 98 report license.

Hmm. Interesting!!

> The installer has the ability to show a license notice to the user and
> ask them to agree to it. The notice presented by the GHC installer
> concatenates the GHC BSD3-like license and the LGPL license for GMP
> into one long page.
> 
> I propose instead to show a much shorter page, something like:
> 
> 	"The components in this package are governed by several open source licenses:
> 	
> 	  GHC system: BSD3
> 	  GMP library: LGPL
> 	  Haskell Platform Libraries: BSD3 & Haskell Report 98
> 	
> 	Details can be found on the web at the [Haskell Platform site].
> 	The components are each installed with their respective license files."
> 
> The [Haskell Platform site] should be a link to a live web page that would show all the details.
> 
> Another option is to concatenate all licenses after the summary text above.
> 
> A third option is to not have the installer show the licenses, nor ask
> for a formal "I Agree" step, and instead, simply point out the
> licenses in the README presented at install time, and in the installed
> "Start" HTML doc.
> 
> Thoughts? What do the other installers for Haskell Platform do?
> 

Some of them bundle all the licenses. (Cabal will have support for this
soon). 

-- Don