I have revived the License: tag proposal, simplified to a basic standardization of the tags used for some common licenses. I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/LicenseTag
Again, I wish to remind folks that this is just a proposal.
- J<
On Tuesday, 28 November 2006 at 08:11, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
I have revived the License: tag proposal, simplified to a basic standardization of the tags used for some common licenses. I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/LicenseTag
Again, I wish to remind folks that this is just a proposal.
Old BSD... how about naming it "Original BSD", per http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#OriginalBSD
Also, why not PHPL instead of PHP License?
Regards, R.
"DM" == Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski dominik@greysector.net writes:
DM> Old BSD... how about naming it "Original BSD", per DM> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#OriginalBSD
That would be a reasonable item for discussion.
DM> Also, why not PHPL instead of PHP License?
Does any existing package use "PHPL"? I don't see any. Several packages use "PHP License".
- J<
On Tuesday, 28 November 2006 at 16:21, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
"DM" == Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski dominik@greysector.net writes:
DM> Old BSD... how about naming it "Original BSD", per DM> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#OriginalBSD
That would be a reasonable item for discussion.
Are there any dissenting opinions?
DM> Also, why not PHPL instead of PHP License?
Does any existing package use "PHPL"? I don't see any. Several packages use "PHP License".
Or maybe simply "PHP". It's short and License: PHP conveys the full meaning, I think.
I don't care much if it stays "PHP License", though. Just throwing ideas.
Regards, R.
Hi,
On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 01:11:11AM -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
I have revived the License: tag proposal, simplified to a basic standardization of the tags used for some common licenses. I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/LicenseTag
Again, I wish to remind folks that this is just a proposal.
there was some talk some time ago about what "distributable" is supposed to mean, and what it implies, e.g. is the source or the binary (re)distributable? Many firmwares have been tagged as distributable. Or the arpack package in the submission queue is also distributable, but possibly not modifiable (which is a blocker, and the authors have been requested to modify the wording, but that's OT).
In fact it opens up the general issue of what the tag really associates to, the source or the binary or both. Technically the main package and the source package have to share the same license text, subpackages can have different licenses (and there are real life examples having different licenses in subpackages).
Also since there is a distinction of GPL<=2 and GPL3, the LGPL should also deserve its own license tag. While currently the disute about GPL2 vs GPL3 is still ringing in our ears, the differences between GPL and LGPL are bigger IMHO.
"AT" == Axel Thimm Axel.Thimm@ATrpms.net writes:
AT> Also since there is a distinction of GPL<=2 and GPL3, the LGPL AT> should also deserve its own license tag.
Of course it does; is there anything that doesn't use a tag of "LGPL" to indicate the LGPL?
Does your statement indicate that you think something should be changed about the draft? I haven't yet presented a list of licenses that should receive standardized tags.
- J<
On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 09:20:39AM -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III wrote:
"AT" == Axel Thimm Axel.Thimm@ATrpms.net writes:
AT> Also since there is a distinction of GPL<=2 and GPL3, the LGPL AT> should also deserve its own license tag.
Of course it does; is there anything that doesn't use a tag of "LGPL" to indicate the LGPL?
Does your statement indicate that you think something should be changed about the draft? I haven't yet presented a list of licenses that should receive standardized tags.
OK, I thought the list of the 8 licenses beneath the "plan" heading was already what you were suggesting as a set, sorry for the noise. :)
On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:11:11 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III scripst:
I have revived the License: tag proposal, simplified to a basic standardization of the tags used for some common licenses. I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingDrafts/LicenseTag
Again, I wish to remind folks that this is just a proposal.
Certainly I am missing in the list my preferred (and very common) MIT/X license.
Matěj
"MC" == Matej Cepl ceplm@seznam.cz writes:
MC> On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:11:11 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III scripst:
I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
MC> Certainly I am missing in the list my preferred (and very common) MC> MIT/X license.
Well, two issues here:
As I wrote in the text you quoted, I wasn't attempting to provide an exhaustive list of licenses to be standardized; I only listed a few examples so that I could get feedback on the proposal itself first and work on the complete list of tags afterwords. Unfortunately so far the only comments I've received has been about tags that are missing form the examples. So the only thing you should infer from the purposefully incomplete random list of examples is that it's incomplete.
But if you want to discuss the license tag to be used for the X11 license, that's OK. In their commentary on the X11 license, FSF says:
"This license is sometimes called the "MIT" license, but that term is misleading, since MIT has used many licenses for software."
and then, referring to the Expat license:
"It is sometimes ambiguously referred to as the MIT License."
So if we're discussing the tag to use for the X11 license, I think it would be less problematic to use just "X11" but there's certainly room for discussion. Note: I've no idea what to do about the rather large number of packages tagged "MIT". Change them to X11 as well?
- J<
On 14 Dec 2006 11:49:16 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
"MC" == Matej Cepl ceplm@seznam.cz writes:
MC> On Tue, 28 Nov 2006 01:11:11 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III scripst:
I have not attempted to pick a list of those common licenses, although I have provided some data on what License: tags are in use.
MC> Certainly I am missing in the list my preferred (and very common) MC> MIT/X license.
Well, two issues here:
As I wrote in the text you quoted, I wasn't attempting to provide an exhaustive list of licenses to be standardized; I only listed a few examples so that I could get feedback on the proposal itself first and work on the complete list of tags afterwords. Unfortunately so far the only comments I've received has been about tags that are missing form the examples. So the only thing you should infer from the purposefully incomplete random list of examples is that it's incomplete.
Comments:
A) Thankyou very much for continuing on this. I made a list for FC-6 and could not get back to it because of job changes
B) One should distinguish v1 and v2 of the GPL. The changes if I remember were rather important. I don't know of any code though under v1.
C) There are multiple versions of the LGPL. I do not remember the differences between renaming it from Library GPL to Lesser GPL.
D) I would go for a standardization as the following:
Name of license, Version of license, File(s) to see details.
BSD, Original, See /usr/share/licenses/BSD.Original BSD, Updated, See /usr/share/licenses/BSD.Updated Multiple, See /usr/share/<package-name>/licenses/ GPL, v1, See /usr/share/licenses/GPL.v1.0
There could be a package called Fedora-Recognized-Licenses-1.0 that installs most of the ones that are considered matching the purpose of the project. It should not be a grab-bag of every license the OSI said was ok.. but the core ones that Fedora considers to be good examples of the central values of Liberty, Equality, and Justice. All other licenses would be required to be placed in the /usr/share/package-name/licenses directory.
"SJS" == Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com writes:
SJS> B) One should distinguish v1 and v2 of the GPL. The changes if I SJS> remember were rather important. I don't know of any code though SJS> under v1.
I recall that the original discussion about this came to the conclusion that GPL1 and 2 shouldn't be distinguished. I'll see if I can't dig it up:
[Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:41:43] <abadger1999> Okay. License Tags isnext [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:09] <tibbs> List discussion seemed to lean towards this being just a superficial description of the license. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:31] <tibbs> That we shouldn't try to get too specific with the license tags. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:46] <lutter> yeah, I don't see that ever being more than an indication [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:51] <abadger1999> I tend to agree with that. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:00] <tibbs> So "GPL", not "GPLv2" and "GPLv3", etc. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:20] <tibbs> And "BSD", not "BSD with advertising". [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:21] <abadger1999> The License field shouldn't be misleading, though. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:10] <abadger1999> So if GPLv2 and GPLv3 are different enough we would want to differentiate. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:13] <tibbs> And packagers should brave the rpmlint warning rather than lying about the license just to shut it up. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:17] <lutter> for GPL, I could go either way; if it's BSD with modifications, why not just 'BSD variation'
SJS> D) I would go for a standardization as the following:
SJS> Name of license, Version of license, File(s) to see details.
Well, that's contrary to pretty much all of the previous discussion. How do others feel?
- J<
On 14 Dec 2006 13:39:29 -0600, Jason L Tibbitts III tibbs@math.uh.edu wrote:
"SJS" == Stephen John Smoogen smooge@gmail.com writes:
SJS> B) One should distinguish v1 and v2 of the GPL. The changes if I SJS> remember were rather important. I don't know of any code though SJS> under v1.
I recall that the original discussion about this came to the conclusion that GPL1 and 2 shouldn't be distinguished. I'll see if I can't dig it up:
[Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:41:43] <abadger1999> Okay. License Tags isnext [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:09] <tibbs> List discussion seemed to lean towards this being just a superficial description of the license. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:31] <tibbs> That we shouldn't try to get too specific with the license tags. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:46] <lutter> yeah, I don't see that ever being more than an indication [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:42:51] <abadger1999> I tend to agree with that. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:00] <tibbs> So "GPL", not "GPLv2" and "GPLv3", etc. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:20] <tibbs> And "BSD", not "BSD with advertising". [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:43:21] <abadger1999> The License field shouldn't be misleading, though. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:10] <abadger1999> So if GPLv2 and GPLv3 are different enough we would want to differentiate. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:13] <tibbs> And packagers should brave the rpmlint warning rather than lying about the license just to shut it up. [Thu Aug 10 2006] [11:44:17] <lutter> for GPL, I could go either way; if it's BSD with modifications, why not just 'BSD variation'
I see a disagreement between abadger and tibbs about 2 and 3. Not 1 & 2.
SJS> D) I would go for a standardization as the following:
SJS> Name of license, Version of license, File(s) to see details.
Well, that's contrary to pretty much all of the previous discussion. How do others feel?
What can I say.. I can be a pretty contrary person. The issue of the license field is mainly to help inform the user of the rights they can expect on copying and/or modifying the code/binary. Since most people only see the compiled source.. it probably doesnt matter if the license just says: You can distribute/modify it. OR You can't distribute/modify it.
packaging@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Axel Thimm -
Dominik 'Rathann' Mierzejewski -
Jason L Tibbitts III -
Matej Cepl -
Stephen John Smoogen