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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)

#71

Post by School-Cotton »

diggan wrote: post #57
School-Cotton wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> seems confusing if so It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Just like you didn’t know standards other than A4 exist, Americans don’t think about the fact that standards other than 8.5x11 inches (I.e. letter) exist. All printers, binders, folders, hole punchers, etc. are made with letter size paper in mind, and most people unless they are involved…

> It is no more confusing to Americans than the fact that Europeans use A4 is to Europeans. Why should it be? Well, A4 (and variants) are not Europe-specific formats, it's the formats most of the world except some few countries (including the US) use, so I'd say it's slightly more surprising than the other way around.

Right, but why does that make letter size confusing?

Even if every other country in the world used A4, the only people in the US who would even notice would be people who commonly do business with other countries or who live near the border. And in reality, Canada and Mexico also use letter so the border thing doesn’t apply.

So why should letter confuse us just because other people use something else?

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

#72

Post by mikeocool »

HideousKojima wrote: post #37
int_19h wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most other weird things in US that pertain to measurements and units thereof, letter-sized paper predates the A-series standard (which originated in Germany). FWIW the latter didn't became an ISO standard until late 20th century. Americans are just very obstinate about those things. It's like the Windows of metrology - backwards compatibility trumps everything else, even when you have utterly bonkers things like…

>Americans are just very obstinate about those things. It's not just obstinance, switching everything to metric in the US would likely cost billions (if not trillions) of dollars. And other countries that have made the switch have often ended up with weird Frankensystems of measurement, like the UK where they mix metric and imperial all the time (plus the weird UK-specific measurements they have like "stone", which i…

Interestingly, it's actually codified in US law that the metric system is the "preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce" -- however it wasn't a mandatory change so most industries didn't make the change, nor did the government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_Stat...

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

#73

Post by echoangle »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #66
echoangle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information: A0 is 1 square meter An to An+1 means cutting the paper along the middle of the longer edge Each An has the same aspect ratio Those are pretty useful properties and precisely define the dimensions of A4.

Why is this useful if you want to write a letter?

For a normal letter, it probably doesn’t matter. But it’s useful in general and doesn’t make it worse for writing letters, so it’s still better to use than a specific letter format with worse properties.

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

diggan wrote: post #4

> The first thing that came to attention, the paper that the text was printed on wasn’t an A4, it was smaller and not a size I was familiar with. I measured it and found that it’s a US letter size paper at about 21.5cm x 27.9cm. I completely forgot that the US, Canada, and a few other countries don’t follow the standard international paper sizes, even though I had written about it earlier. I guess I shouldn't be surp…

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by rascul »

int_19h wrote: post #33
remram wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper size and foreign stamps make sense, but I must say the inability to use a pen surprised me a little more.

I'm not an American and I did write letters in my country of origin as a kid, but one thing that annoys me about US-style envelopes to this day is that they have no lines for address - you're just expected to line text up on your own correctly. If you're used to writing on lined paper because that's the standard in your country (including envelopes!), it can be frustrating. The envelopes I'm used to look like this: h…

> one thing that annoys me about US-style envelopes to this day is that they have no lines for address

I'm an American and I've used envelopes that have lines to write addresses on. I used to see them every now and then. In fact, I have about half a box sitting in my filing cabinet next to me that I probably haven't used for years.

Many envelopes don't have the lines, though.

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #66
echoangle wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A4 isn’t some random format, you can derive it with three pieces of information: A0 is 1 square meter An to An+1 means cutting the paper along the middle of the longer edge Each An has the same aspect ratio Those are pretty useful properties and precisely define the dimensions of A4.

Why is this useful if you want to write a letter?

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by diggan »

bluGill wrote: post #30

At least he got a response. Meaning the address didn't change mostly. A few years back I worked on an embedded linux project. For our first "alpha" release one of the testers read through the license agreement (as opposed to scrolling past all that legalese like most people do) and found the address to write to to get all the GPL source, he then send a letter to the address and it was returned to sender, invalid addr…

An updated version would say to make sure every email address you use/show in the application/terms/policies are usable and someone receives it.

When reviewing stuff that introduces new emails and whatnot I always spend 10-20 seconds sending an email with "Please respond if you see this" to verify it actually works and someone receives it, as I've experienced more than once that no one actually setup the email before deploying the changes that will show the email to users.

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

#78

Post by thesuitonym »

int_19h wrote: post #33
remram wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper size and foreign stamps make sense, but I must say the inability to use a pen surprised me a little more.

I'm not an American and I did write letters in my country of origin as a kid, but one thing that annoys me about US-style envelopes to this day is that they have no lines for address - you're just expected to line text up on your own correctly. If you're used to writing on lined paper because that's the standard in your country (including envelopes!), it can be frustrating. The envelopes I'm used to look like this: h…

We have envelopes like that, too, but they're not all that common.

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

#79

Post by Symbiote »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #67
remram wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper size and foreign stamps make sense, but I must say the inability to use a pen surprised me a little more.

Being unaware of paper sizes is baffling to me - where I live, letter and legal paper are common but I’m entirely aware of ISO216 paper sizes.

In a country using ISO paper, national paper sizes of one of the few places not using this standard are obscure.

I've never seen it in any office or stationary shop in Europe. It's available online, at a premium.

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

#80

Post by n3storm »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #67
remram wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paper size and foreign stamps make sense, but I must say the inability to use a pen surprised me a little more.

Being unaware of paper sizes is baffling to me - where I live, letter and legal paper are common but I’m entirely aware of ISO216 paper sizes.

True, any page oriented software like LibreOffice, Inkscape, Gimp, will show you US Letter sizes and US Letter Envelope sizes and you may have messed up with printing on wrong size... but as other posters say, maybe this days nobody prints on real paper anymore...
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