I have to wonder, if something like VLC can exist, which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged, why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues? The problem here appears to be that the license (CC-BY 4.0) is only specified in the README file, not in the timezone data file itself. Like, do they really think that it only applies to the README, and if they use the data they're going to get sued? I get that it's important to cover one's ass, but if it gets to the point where software breaks as a result, it's gone much too far.
I wonder if the right solution here is to have some kind of body provide insurance against frivolous litigation over licensing issues for open-source projects, so that this kind of stupidity doesn't arise.
Edit: It appears I was mistaken about the legal status of VLC: it is about software patent licenses, not software copywright licenses.
>which blatantly flies in the face of copywright law unchallenged
How do you figure? Patent law isn't copyright law, and doesn't apply equally around the world.
>why do so many open-source projects get ridiculously anal about license issues
Because it's their code and people are using it without compensation and in ways not amenable to them? I think you'd be pretty "anal", too, if someone took your software that you worked hard on, without wanting to contribute their improvements and without any other form of compensation.
x264 basically funds VLC. Don't steal other people's code.
Stealing code isn't at issue here, the scenario is that developers are not incorporating new timezone data because the open-source license for that data is only printed the README, not in the timezone data file itself. This is the sort of thing I'm calling anal.
I wonder if the right solution here is to have some kind of body provide insurance against frivolous litigation over licensing issues for open-source projects, so that this kind of stupidity doesn't arise.
Edit: It appears I was mistaken about the legal status of VLC: it is about software patent licenses, not software copywright licenses.