Re: windows installer and COPYING

[jah <jah () zadkiel plus com>]

On 22/12/2007 05:10, Fyodor wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 12, 2007 at 01:11:32AM +0000, jah wrote:
>   
> > I've been looking into whether it's possible/feasible to fix the font 
> > used to display the license because the default used in nsis, I believe 
> > is the default for the system on which the installer is executed.  Using 
> > a fixed font and font size might dispense with the need to maintain a 
> > separate COPYING as we'd be able to fit it properly in the available 
> > field, but it would still break at higher dpi's used by short sighted 
> > people and those installing nmap on computers attached to huge plasma 
> > screens...
> >     
>
> Thanks for the patch, Jah.  I do agree that the license agreement
> looks terribly in the current installer, and I would like to fix that.
> But I'd really like to avoid maintaining another version of the
> copyright/license text just for this.  It is sure to go out of date,
> which is particularly bad for a license file.  We currently maintain
> the text in two places:
>
> The source code templates -> Used at the top of each C source or
>   include file, and in the COPYING file.  This one is surrounded by
>   C-style comments.
>
> The license.xml file -> Used to generate the man page in nroff and
>   html format.  You can read this at
>   http://insecure.org/nmap/man/man-legal.html .
>
> So I'd like to find a solution which either adjusts the installer to
> make one of these work as is (such as expanding the license text box
> or reducing the font size) or uses an automated approach to create the
> new file based on one of these sources.  For example, maybe there is
> an nroff command which will create a version of the man page with the
> right number of columns.  We could then just chop out the legal
> notices section.  Or maybe a short script could remove the C comment
> square from the COPYING file, which would probably fix the issue.
>
> Cheers,
> -F
>   
Hello.

I'm almost ready to submit a patch which formats COPYING for the nsis
installer license page using sed and I'd like your input on whether the
first two lines of text in COPYING are necessary for the nsis license.
"COPYING -- Describes the terms under which Nmap is distributed.  A copy
of the GNU GPL is appended to this file."

My opinion is that this doesn't make much sense in the context of the
nsis license page and perhaps it could be removed or reworded
(automagically).  The nsis form is clearly labelled as "License
Agreement".  Perhaps a rewording to the effect:
"This License describes the terms under which Nmap is distributed.  A
copy of the GNU GPL is appended to this license."
which would then be followed by:
"IMPORTANT NMAP LICENSE TERMS"

Regards,

jah

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