I understood that SPDX can easily be used in new projects, for example.
But when an earlier project has a license that explicitly states something like "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.", can you replace it by a single SPDX link?
I think that technology allows you to easily link something on the internet instead of providing a offline text file, but is it lawful? And justifiable, since having _n_ text files saying one thing is easily compressable ?
Got me thinking about it, does removing lines-of-not-code does really make it smaller or just a little
For my own code I will use spdx references in the source code files but still have a LICENSE file in the repo root like I already do with the full text of the license.
IANAL so I can’t say what you legally can and cannot do with other people’s code but I would think that placing a copy of each of the licenses used by others in your repo and name them as LICENSE_THIRDPARTY_MIT, LICENSE_THIRDPARTY_GPL, etc and mention in your README that these correspond to the spdx references found in source files would mean that you were still in compliance.
As for the question “does removing lines of not-code make the file smaller or just a little”; it does not reduce the SLOC count of course. Personally I just find the idea of spdx appealing because it means that when I open files to edit them I don’t have to scroll past a lot of license text first. Additionally scanning source files for what license is being used will be simplified.
Not a complete answer to your question, but at least if you hold the copyright to the source code (including all modifications), you're of course free to re-license it.
But when an earlier project has a license that explicitly states something like "The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.", can you replace it by a single SPDX link?
I think that technology allows you to easily link something on the internet instead of providing a offline text file, but is it lawful? And justifiable, since having _n_ text files saying one thing is easily compressable ?
Got me thinking about it, does removing lines-of-not-code does really make it smaller or just a little