Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: "Michał Górny" <mgorny@g.o>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Cc: licenses@g.o, qa <qa@g.o>
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Solving the problem of huge number of wrong LICENSES=*GPL-[23]
Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2018 17:14:47
Message-Id: 1535303675.1066.32.camel@gentoo.org
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] [RFC] Solving the problem of huge number of wrong LICENSES=*GPL-[23] by Ulrich Mueller
1 On Sun, 2018-08-26 at 17:50 +0200, Ulrich Mueller wrote:
2 > > > > > > On Sun, 26 Aug 2018, Michał Górny wrote:
3 > > 1. introducing additional *-only licenses that explicitly indicate
4 > > that a newer version is not allowed, e.g. GPL-2-only, LGPL-3-only etc.
5 >
6 > I don't like this at all, because LICENSE="GPL-2" means exactly the
7 > above, namely GPL version 2, no later version. Therefore, "GPL-2-only"
8 > would be completely redundant to it.
9 >
10 > What we could do (and what already exists in several ebuilds) is to add
11 > a *comment* to the LICENSE line, like "# GPL-2 only". This could be
12 > required for every new ebuild.
13
14 Sure, I suppose that would work.
15
16 > > 2. annotating the unsuffixed licenses with a warning that they may
17 > > mean either x-only or x+ due to frequent mistake.
18 >
19 > I don't think that's a good idea either. Also we're not allowed to
20 > change the license documents:
21 > "Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
22 > of this license document, but changing it is not allowed."
23
24 I don't think adding an annotation on top or bottom is equal to changing
25 it.
26
27 >
28 > > 3. make repoman warn whenever non-specific variant is used, telling
29 > > developers to verify whether it's x-only or x+.
30 >
31 > Repoman could check for a comment in the LICENSE line as well, I guess?
32
33 Proper handling of comments would be rather hard, especially given that
34 by definition they have no specific form and therefore users can use
35 them in weird ways.
36
37 >
38 > > 4. start migrating packages to x-only or x+ appropriately.
39 >
40 > See above. We could instead migrate ebuilds with "GPL-2" to either:
41 > LICENSE="GPL-2+"
42 > or:
43 > LICENSE="GPL-2" # GPL-2 only
44
45 One thing where this would fail would be e.g.:
46
47 LICENSE="GPL-2+
48 bar? ( GPL-2 )
49 foo? ( GPL-3+ )" ^ you can't put a comment on the right line
50
51 >
52 > Optionally, the comment can be removed once all ebuilds have been
53 > converted.
54 >
55 > > 5. eventually, remove the non-specific licenses and make repoman error
56 > > out with clear explanation.
57 >
58 > Ulrich
59
60 --
61 Best regards,
62 Michał Górny

Attachments

File name MIME type
signature.asc application/pgp-signature

Replies