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I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

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Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#491

Post by fragmede »

pabs3 wrote: post #477
giancarlostoro wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does if it leads to a web page with an address. What happens when all project maintainers die and the source code disappears?

Hopefully it will never disappear, since Software Heritage and ArchiveTeam will have saved it. https://www.softwareheritage.org/ https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/Codearchiver

Hope is not a strategy. As much as I hate crypto, something on the blockchain might be more durable. You want something that isn't reliant on any one person or company to continue to exist (though maybe the long now foundation will) and even if Bitcoin goes to zero, I think there will be some die hard true believers to keep running miners even past the built in 2140 expiration date.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#492

Post by foxglacier »

ndiddy wrote: post #186
terinjokes wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should the test process be sending physical letters (edit: in 2025)? Nothing in the GPLv2 requires a physical letter. The address the OP sent a letter too has already been removed from the canonical version of the license (and was itself an unversioned change from the original address), and section 3 doesn't require a physical offer if the machine-readable source code is provided.

Some companies still do this mainly to make the GPL request process more annoying so fewer people do it. If you have to mail a letter with a check to cover shipping/handling and wait for the company to send you a CD-R with the code on it, fewer people will look at the code compared to if the company just put it on Github or something.

I offer GPL source via physical address because I don't want to distribute it with the software and I think the GPL said you have to do it that way. I also provide an email address for convenience but without it being the official way so I don't really have to respond to those. In 10 years, I've had zero requests either way.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#494

Post by neilv »

It's kinda charming when some old-school address or phone number, that perhaps few have used in a long time, still works.

Circa 2010, I bought a vintage Concept2 Model B rowing machine, made in the 1980s, and wanted to fix it up. The paper order form I found for parts was similar to those tiny order forms at the bottom of an ad in an old comic book, where you'd handwrite your return address, and it told you the address to mail it to, with your payment.

Somehow, not only did this address still reach them, but they were set up to fulfill parts orders this way, they actually had the parts for this decades-old model, and sent me the parts (for a pittance), and they tossed in a free service manual.

I already loved the product (from using it at gyms), and now I loved the company.

I wonder what percentage of 25 year-old URLs still work.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#495

Post by 1123581321 »

dheera wrote: post #383
seabass-labrax wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that waiting two hours is normal for customers of the USPS. You can order stamps online, they have (collection) postboxes and even offer a pick-up service for parcels. At $0.73 to send a letter anywhere in the USA, that sounds like a pretty impressive offering to me.

It's lining up multiple times. When I walk in with a box, I don't know how the hell to mail it, what to fill out, what the pricing vs. delivery ETA grid is so I can decide where I want to position myself on that curve, the different forms you need to fill to be on different parts of that curve. I usually end up screwing it up a few times in the process too. I didn't realize that the free boxes they give you are only…

This is some other issue, perhaps untreated executive dysfunction.

I have seen people struggling to complete tasks at post offices and banks, queuing multiple times unnecessarily, being afraid of choosing the wrong options but not doing any research, etc. They don’t take the basic steps that the others in line do to make their visit work.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#496

Post by mmx1 »

pantalaimon wrote: post #456
self_awareness wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the sender requests GPLv2, he should receive GPL version 2. If the sender requests GPL, I find it natural for him to receive version 3, because it's the latest version. At the time of receiving the license, he gains knowledge about the existence of version 3 (the header on the print says the GPL he received is version 3). If the sender has a notice about GPLv2, it means that there's a high chance that there's also…

GPLv2 by default means GPLv2 or later, so GPLv3 is perfectly valid indeed.

That's actually not true. GPLv2 by default means v2, not v3, unless you explicitly allow "or later."

Linux is actually the famed example of v2 but not v3.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#497

Post by wink »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #3

Not sure if it's being exaggerated for comedic purposes but it is interesting to me how alien the act of sending a letter by post is to the author. Granted I don't send them very often but I wouldn't think much of it if I had to. But I guess younger people and particularly those in tech may genuinely never need a reason to send a letter (or, it seems, write an address by hand).

I mean, yes it reads a little awkward, but not too long ago I had misplaced the stack of envelopes + stamps I keep in my desk drawer and I needed to send something by snail mail (hey, remember that term?) and yeah. I am not someone who takes notes on paper, so I'm holding a pen only about once a week (the years quoted in the article sounds weird even to me) and it was a bit of a task (the whole sending, this time, not the writing). Bonus points for trying to use up old stamps when they're constantly changing the needed amount every couple years - so I usually need to put about 3 stamps even for local postage. But I guess that's just because I'm cheap and don't want to buy "new" code stamps when I have about 20 EUR in old stamps I can still use up.

Always interesting discussions with my wife who works in an office where paper mail, fax machines, and signing things on paper all happen multiple times every single day.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#498

Post by int_19h »

HideousKojima wrote: post #370
int_19h wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single country in the world that is on metric today had to switch from something else at some point in the past. Why overfocus so much on UK when you have literally a hundred successful examples? One does have to wonder what it is about Anglo countries specifically that makes it so difficult for them, though. Well, Canada at least has the excuse of being next door to US, with the resulting economic effects. For…

>Every single country in the world that is on metric today had to switch from something else at some point in the past. Why overfocus so much on UK when you have literally a hundred successful examples? A huge percentage of those countries didn't have established industrial bases, infrastructure, etc. And also no educated general populace that needed reeducating. And often those countries were effectively forced into…

Even then, that still leaves most of Europe.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#499

Post by relistan »

terinjokes wrote: post #41

A few countries I'll be visiting this summer still sell International Reply Coupons. It might be interesting to pick some up and see how difficult it is to exchange them. Would a PostNL point even know what to do with one?

As a ham radio operator who still likes paper QSL cards, I’ve bought international reply coupons from Swiss Post because they still sell them and you can order them online (I live in Ireland but here they no longer sell them). Any postal service that is a member of the Universal Postal Union (nearly all of them are AFAICT) is obliged to accept them. They work in most places.

Re: I wrote to the address in the GPLv2 license notice (2022)

#500

Post by relistan »

dl9999 wrote: post #341
mjevans wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offhand, I don't think I've ever mailed an International letter or package. Is return postage something that, normally, my local post office would help me with? E.G. do they have some method of marking or adding post to a package that would be accepted globally (or at least within the destination country)?

I send $3 U.S. with QSL (ham radio) cards. It seems like everybody is able to convert that to local currency to cover postage.

I send international reply coupons with QSL cards. They no longer sell them in Ireland, where I live, but you can still order them from Swiss Post, online. They work everywhere. They mail them to you for free.

https://shop.post.ch/en/packing-sending/sending-letters/regi...

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