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On Sat, Sep 21, 2019 at 1:58 PM Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o> wrote: |
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> |
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> >>>>> On Sat, 21 Sep 2019, Michał Górny wrote: |
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> |
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> > I'd like to propose to employ a more systematic method of resolving this |
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> > problem. I would like to add additional explicit 'GPL-n-only' licenses, |
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> > and discourage using short 'GPL-n' in favor of them. The end result |
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> > would be three licenses per every version/variant, e.g.: |
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> |
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> > GPL-2-only -- version 2 only |
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> > GPL-2+ -- version 2 or newer |
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> > GPL-2 -- might be either, audit necessary |
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> |
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> To elaborate a bit more on this: "GPL-2" already has that well defined |
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> meaning that your proposed "GPL-2-only" has, namely that the package is |
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> licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2. |
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We are all aware. But the point is to explicitly put "-only" in the |
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LICENSE metadata so that ebuild authors are less likely to confuse |
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GPL-2 vs GPL-2+. |
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> Presumably, your change would cause a long transition time, in which we |
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> would have *three* variants for every GPL version (as well as LGPL, |
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> AGPL, FDL), two of them with identical meaning. And after the transition |
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> time, we would have "GPL-2-only" instead of "GPL-2", which is not only |
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> longer but also not accurate. |
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Sure, but who cares about a long transition time? We still have EAPI=0 |
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ebuilds in tree -- and that's okay since we can quickly and easily |
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tell what hasn't been transitioned! |
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> Plus, it would result in paradoxical entries like "|| ( GPL-2-only |
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> GPL-3-only )" for a package that can be distributed under GPL versions 2 |
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> or 3 but no later version. |
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That paradoxical entry is pretty clear to me. |
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> If the goal of this exercise is to do an audit of ebuilds labelled as |
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> "GPL-2", then a less intrusive approach (which I had already suggested |
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> when this issue had last been discussed) would be to add a comment to |
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> the LICENSE line, either saying "# GPL-2 only" for packages that have |
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> been verified. Or the other way aroung, starting with a comment saying |
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> that it is undecided, which would be removed after an audit. This would |
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It's not a one-time audit. Michał has a history of fixing things in |
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ways that does not allow the issue to return. I imagine that's what |
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he's doing here, and it would not surprise me at all if something |
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could be wired into CI to help ensure this. |
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> have the advantage not to confuse users, and have no impact on their |
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> ACCEPT_LICENSE settings. (For example, some people exclude AGPL and |
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> would have to add entries for AGPL-3-only.) |
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Trivial concern solved with a news item. |