Re: Some hard numbers on licenses used by elisp packages

[Jonas Bernoulli]

> Under the malign influence of GitHub, developers often don't bother to
> put on a license.  This means the program is not free software (nor
> open source either).

Github actively encourages users to specify the license.  (Yes, they
suggest free software as well as open source licenses.)

Also I am under the impression that things are getting better, not
worse.  A higher percentage of new packages specify a license than in
the old days.  The following potential reasons for this come to mind:
Packages get more exposure now (thanks to Github and even more
importantly Melpa), so their authors make a bigger up front effort to
do things the right way.  If they don't do so initially, then it is now
much easier to contact them and ask them to do it.  People like Steve
Purcell and me have contacted hundreds and hundreds of authors over the
course of many years encouraging and helping them to improve their
packages.