If one builds on another's open source code and incorporates it in one's site, but does not redistribute the modified code, is it necessary to leave all the license statements in the file on one's site since it can make the file bulkier than necessary and no one will ever see it? I'm talking about the stuff like:
//
// This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
// modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
// as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
// of the License, or any later version.
//
// This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
// GNU General Public License for more details.
//
// 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.
//
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
I think it is legal remove such statements in this context, but I can't say the "bulk" seems like a good reason for doing it. We are talking modern computers here, the drive space is cheaper than the labor to remove the snippets. Since the comments will not inmpact execution time, or in the case of web applications the size of the resulting html file, I would have to question the motives of someone wanting to do this. It would be easy for said organization to forget where the original code came from, if you remove all the copyright notices.
I'm not a lawyer (and I don't play one in the Internet), but I wouln't say removing the copyright attribution and the license conditions is legal (at least not in the country I live -Spain-), not even if you don't redistribute the code. But as I said, IANAL.
Saludos. Iñaki.
Saludos. Iñaki.
Me either, so our advice shouldn't be taken as such 
.
I am the organization and believe me it wouldn't be easy for me to forget where I got the code from. I want to leave the credits in the file as to who made it. But since I have absolutely no plans to redistribute the code, I don't see the necessity of the license statement as it covers distribution, not use. If I were to ever redistribute, it wouldn't be hard for me to restore the license.
Question remains: why would you want to do that?