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Hi, |
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According to GLEP 23 [1], the LICENSE variable regulates the software |
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that is installed on a system. There is however some ambiguity in |
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this: should it cover the actual files installed on the system, or |
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everything that is included in the package's tarball? This question |
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was asked several times in the past and arose in bug 492424 [2] again. |
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I've always preferred the first interpretation, because the second one |
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would inevitably require us to repack many tarballs, in order to keep |
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their license in @FREE. This would for example include the Linux |
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kernel, where we could no longer use deblobbing, but would have to |
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provide our own tarball with firmware blobs removed. Not sure if users |
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would be happy if we wouldn't install from pristine sources any more. |
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We also have mirror and fetch restrictions which allow us to control |
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what tarballs we distribute, independent of the LICENSE variable. |
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|
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Nevertheless, I also see the point for covering the distfiles |
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contents. |
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|
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Within existing EAPIs we have only one LICENSE variable available. |
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(Extending it would be possible in future EAPIs, but we would end up |
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with a very long transition period.) USE conditional syntax is allowed |
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in LICENSE, though. So I wonder if this couldn't be used for the |
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intended purpose. For example, for specifying licenses of distfiles: |
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|
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LICENSE="<licenses of installed stuff> |
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srcdist? ( <licenses of unused stuff in distfiles> )" |
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|
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This idea was discussed within the licenses team, and the overall |
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reaction was positive. |
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What do you think? |
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|
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Ulrich |
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|
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[1] http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/glep/glep-0023.html |
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[2] https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=492424#c3 |
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