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> But why PDF at all? Is there a reason to put the online license in a PDF?

Yes. It's so that you have a dated copy. An web-page with the license on it can be retroactively changed.

You can save web pages as easily as you can save PDFs. You can also edit PDF files with common office tools. The only thing PDF works for is ensuring the rendered copy looks exactly the same everywhere and to add a signature but I don't see the value in those two options for this use case; if anything, this institution should let the user agrnt decide how the text is remdered best and we don't know their public key to validate their signature.

Are you distinguishing between a PDF that downloads by default (rather than using an in-browser preview)? Because I’m that case, you could download the license page just the same.

> Are you distinguishing between a PDF that downloads by default (rather than using an in-browser preview)? Because I’m that case, you could download the license page just the same.

The metadata on the license page does not offer the same guarantees as the metadata in the PDF.

The PDF can even be signed; the license page cannot.

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