[gentoo-dev] Re: Ranged licenses

[Ryan Hill]

Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:54:57 +0100
> Thilo Bangert <bangert@g.o> wrote:
>> there is also the legal argument. it's better to state explicitly
>> which versions apply and not have to cleanup the mess, when somebody
>> decides to release GPL-2.5.
>
> That's an argument strongly in favour of ranged specs. A huge number of
> packages are licensed under "GPL 2 or later", and currently most ebuilds
> incorrectly use LICENSE="GPL-2" for these. Even changing these to
> LICENSE="|| ( GPL-2 GPL-3 )" just shifts the problem around a bit. With
> CRAN "GPL 2 or later" translates to "GPL (>= 2)", which is a much more
> accurate description of a package's license.

Either requires the same amount of work; auditing a package and correcting
the LICENSE variable.  I think we could take a previous idea of Flameeyes'
and add a GPL-2+ or GPL-2_or_later licence.

As for other licences, i have no real opinion.  It seems like a complex
solution for a small problem though.


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