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>>>>> On Sat, 21 Sep 2019, Michał Górny wrote: |
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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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> 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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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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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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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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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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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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|
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Ulrich |