License: GPL v2
GNU GPL v2+ ... the + is very important.
The important thing is the URLs, not the abbreviations.
Yes, clearly there has to be something describing what the abbreviations
mean. I'd prefer that to be a url, but it could also be in
standards.texi. I don't know if rms will have strong feelings about
this.
I very much doubt we can reliably maintain a url for each version of
each license.
For that, <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html> is a good
list.
It would be ok for me, and we could add the abbreviations to that page.
I don't know where the "MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE." came from in the snipped you quoted. The wording above is
used by coreutils:
It comes from the recommended wording in the GPL appendix for source
files. Some packages use it in the --version output, too, although the
appendix just says "comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY" for interactive
use; of course --version isn't interactive. Anyway, the coreutils
warranty wording seems preferable to me too.
It's all quite a mess.
