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I don't agree with that interpretation of the MIT license. I'm aware that it's popular, perhaps majority, but I think it wouldn't hold up in court, though I hop

I don't agree with that interpretation of the MIT license. I'm aware that it's popular, perhaps majority, but I think it wouldn't hold up in court, though I hope we never find out, it would be a churlish point to sue over imho. The clause (the "Software") is defined, and when we unroll the relevant line using that definition we get this: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of this software and associated documentation files First note: it says this software, and source code is routinely distributed without the binary. It also says "and associated documentation files", and here we have a dog which doesn't bark: the clear opportunity to say "as well as compiled artifacts and object" was not taken, leading a reasonable person to be able to conclude this omission was intentional. I happen to think the point was to include copyright notice on source and documentation, but not on binaries, which is awkward to do. If you want to be safe, ok, sure, find a way, and IANAL.

btdmaster 4y ago
Is the binary no longer the software? All precedent would suggest otherwise. (Though I can see it may not be a copy of the software, as compilation is usually more than that.)
- samatman 4y ago
  That's the subtlety, the clause is introduced thus: > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software") And I maintain that the use of this in reference to the software is dispositive that it doesn't refer to anything which doesn't exist in the repo/tarball/whatever, particularly not object code, and that the reference to associated documentation files is evidence that the omission was deliberate. This is why lawyers should write licenses though. The ambiguity sucks.

btdmaster 4y ago

Is the binary no longer the software? All precedent would suggest otherwise. (Though I can see it may not be a copy of the software, as compilation is usually more than that.)

samatman 4y ago
That's the subtlety, the clause is introduced thus: > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software") And I maintain that the use of this in reference to the software is dispositive that it doesn't refer to anything which doesn't exist in the repo/tarball/whatever, particularly not object code, and that the reference to associated documentation files is evidence that the omission was deliberate. This is why lawyers should write licenses though. The ambiguity sucks.