While contributing to some open-source repo the other day, I diligently copied that copyright license boilerplate that every good developer adds to their code without ever reading. For the first time in two decades, I decided to actually read it, and the last lines particularly triggered my attention:
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
* along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
* Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA
* 02111-1307, USA.
The first obvious question is: does the FSF today still process paper letters coming from people all over the world who want a paper copy of a license that can be found on the web within 2 ms? I've been honestly tempted by the idea of sending a physical letter to the FSF and request a hard copy of the GPL 3 license, just to frame it in my room (fax could also be an interesting option, who know if they provide the feature).
The second obvious question is: just how common is this address in today's code? So I asked Github, and got back an astonishing 131M results.
Do you know any other address that may be referenced more often in all the software ever written?
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