Re: [gentoo-dev] Clarify the "as-is" license?

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Sun, 23 Sep 2012, Rich Freeman wrote:

>> - net-misc/ntp: "as-is" looks fine as main license, although some
>> parts of the code are under different licenses like GPL (but I
>> haven't checked in detail what gets installed).

> Uh, if we're distributing the sources, and they contain GPL content,
> then the only valid answer is GPL,

Unfortunately, it's not clear from our documentation if the LICENSE
variable applies to the source tarball or to the files that the
package installs on the user's system.

I tend to interpret it in the latter sense. To illustrate why, let's
look at sci-visualization/gnuplot-4.6.0 as an example:

   LICENSE="gnuplot GPL-2 bitmap? ( free-noncomm )"

The bulk of the package is free software, distributed under the
gnuplot license or the GPL-2. However, there's an additional notice
with a no-sale clause in a single source file (src/bitmap.c).
If LICENSE applies to installed files, than we can disable the
functionality via USE=-bitmap and we're done.

However, if we say that LICENSE covers the source tarball, then we
either need to change it to an unconditional "gnuplot GPL-2
free-noncomm", which has the consequence that gnuplot is no longer
installable for users who have ACCEPT_LICENSE="-* @FREE".

Or, we must no longer distribute pristine source from upstream, but
repack them into a new tarball with bitmap.c removed. This would have
to be done for every release, which isn't feasible.

Similar reasoning applies to the various Linux kernel packages that
have LICENSE="GPL-2 !deblob? ( freedist )".

> or nomirror.

That's a different issue. In the case of RESTRICT="mirror" it is clear
that it applies to the sources that we distribute.

Ulrich