Try packaging some software for Debian and you'll do a lot of grepping because Debian cares deeply about complying with the law. I've also poked Red Hat's lawyers to get some kernel code from GPLv2 to GPLv2+ because I wanted to reuse it in GPLv3 software, etc. If you're following the law, you're grepping for licenses. If you or your employer don't care about complying with the law, you're welcome to take that risk.
If you don't have the explicit right to reuse a piece of code, you can't assume you do. If you don't like this, get your lawmakers to remove your country from the Berne Convention. Or you can risk breaking the law and hope nobody notices; up to you.
It might be telling that there's an entire _company_ dedicated to grepping for licenses as a service, because people don't do so and then they get in trouble.
https://www.blackducksoftware.com/
Comments
Try packaging some software for Debian and you'll do a lot of grepping because Debian cares deeply about complying with the law. I've also poked Red Hat's lawyers to get some kernel code from GPLv2 to GPLv2+ because I wanted to reuse it in GPLv3 software, etc. If you're following the law, you're grepping for licenses. If you or your employer don't care about complying with the law, you're welcome to take that risk.
Here's the results of all the grepping I did for a Debian package recently, and this was relatively straightforward as software goes. Note the lines that start "Comment": https://tracker.debian.org/media/packages/p/prelink/copyrigh...
If you don't have the explicit right to reuse a piece of code, you can't assume you do. If you don't like this, get your lawmakers to remove your country from the Berne Convention. Or you can risk breaking the law and hope nobody notices; up to you.
It might be telling that there's an entire _company_ dedicated to grepping for licenses as a service, because people don't do so and then they get in trouble. https://www.blackducksoftware.com/