@jba points out that pkg.go.dev works in terms of module zip files, which only contain files in the module tree. The module zip for gioui.org/example does not contain the UNLICENSE nor LICENSE-MIT files from the parent directory

I personally think this is the correct position; otherwise if I install/use the module via proxy.golang.org there will be no license distributed with the code I am using, which seems wrong.

The module is the unit of source code exchange and versioning; it seems a sensible requirement to have the license be part of that.

I agree that this is a bit bizarre, though. Do we expect an open source monorepo with dozens of published modules to contain dozens of exact copies of its license? If that's what we expect, I don't think it has been communicated well enough.

Note that this is all confused by the fact that the go command automatically propagates LICENSE files -- not LICENCE, not LICENSE.md, just LICENSE -- from the repository root to nested modules, and that decision can't be changed because it would break checksums.

I didn't know about the LICENSE propagation. That's sort of good news. For me in particular if pkg.go.dev supports dual-licensed projects where the licenses are merged into one LICENSE file.

I created a testing branch of gioui.org with the merged LICENSE file, here, tagged "license-debug".

Is there a way to test whether pkg.go.dev accepts the merged LICENSE without pushing the change to master? licensecheck doesn't seem offer a cli version.

I'm lazy, so I opted to simply merge the licenses into LICENSE and push to master. It worked! See

https://pkg.go.dev/mod/gioui.org?tab=licenses
and the submodules
https://pkg.go.dev/mod/gioui.org/example?tab=licenses
https://pkg.go.dev/mod/gioui.org/cmd?tab=licenses

I'm closing this issue because I'm happy: license propagation works without awkward duplication and the licensing babble is confined to a single file, LICENSE. Thanks for the tip, @heschik.