Full Licence field

[Lyos Gemini Norezel]

Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> On 03/20/2009 03:38 PM, Lyos Gemini Norezel wrote:
>   
>> Isn't it possible to figure that out with a bit of bash programming?
>> Eg., use the 'comm' command.
>> "comm     Compare two sorted files line by line"
>>
>> and, if different, a diff could be generated to show you exactly what's
>> different.
>>
>> Doesn't seem like much of a hassle to me.
>>     
>
> Are you volunteering to do the work then?
>
>   

I'm not much of a bash programmer (or any kind of programmer, really...
last time I could, legitimately, call myself a programmer was back in 
the 8086,
6502, etc ASM days), but I'd be willing to give it a shot if there 
is/would be
enough interest in such a tool.

If I had infrastructure support, I could even help setup the script to email
you the diffs when needed, provided such a script is setup on the koji 
boxen.

>> How difficult would it be to add functionality in yum:
>> a.) to store the license value of each program, and
>> b.) to integrate a license reader for easy access/reading?
>>     
>
> I'm going to go out on a limb and say this isn't what we want. It will
> just bloat the yum metadata for a rather minimal benefit.
>
>   

Perhaps yum could store the values in a text/db file that another program
(say %license_reader) could import?

> Returning to the original problem, I'd rather see a transaction workflow
> like this:
>
> * Look at what a package has marked as a 'license file' (NOTE: RPM
> doesn't really have support for this yet)
>   

Pity. A %license (ie., like the %doc) field would be nice to have.

> * Compare it against the set of known "Generic" licenses.
> * If it is an exact match, replace it with a symlink to the Generic license.
>
> Now, the problem is that if you do this in yum, you'll break rpm
> verification of any package handled in such a way. 

Oh? Why is that?

> It might be possible to have RPM do this automagically, but I suspect they'd think it is a
> monstrous hack. There are RPM devs lurking on this list, I wonder if they will chime in.
>   

I'd like to hear their thoughts on this, too.


Lyos Gemini Norezel
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