[Fedora-packaging] License Tag Draft

[Stephen John Smoogen]

On 7/27/07, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 14:51 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > On 7/27/07, Jeremy Katz <katzj at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2007-07-27 at 11:26 -0600, Stephen John Smoogen wrote:
> > > > On 7/27/07, Tom spot Callaway <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > > # For a breakdown of the licensing, see PACKAGE-LICENSING
> > > >
> > > > Actual would it be possible that we cut down the syntax to the following:
> > > >
> > > > License: see PACKAGE-LICENSING
> > >
> > > A downside of keeping all the information in a separate file is that it
> > > doesn't end up in the metadata and so you have to explode out packages
> > > to get at it.
> > >
> >
> > Well for most single license systems, i could see
> >
> > License: GPLv2 see PACKAGE-LICENSING for more information
> > License: Complicated see PACKAGE-LICENSING for more information
> > License: Frickin' Complicated see PACKAGE-LICENSING for more information
> > License: Spot Died For This Package see PACKAGE-LICENSING for more information
>
> This is really overloading the License field, and sadly, a
> "PACKAGE-LICENSING" file wouldn't really be any more legally binding.
>

Well I was going for hyperbole on a Friday email.. before I tried
sending it to memo-list :). I am not sure that there is any legally
binding part of either the Tag or the PACKAGE-LICENSING file if either
were wrong.


> Don't get me wrong, I'd be tickled pink if we did this, but it would add
> a LOT of overhead, unless it was automatically generated at build time
> and slid into the package.
>

I would like to try and help with this part. Having a PACKAGE-LICENSE,
fedora-approved-licenses.rpm, and a find-licences.py would all have to
be done together in some stage. The idea is to try and make the life
of the maintainer, upstream, and the project easier in the case where
unknown licenses creep in, an approved package gets an update that has
a bad license in it (Someone changed foo-bar from GPLv2 to
MicrosoftOwnsUv1 on this release..). The idea would be to make it as
automated as possible, or at least create a report that the
maintainer/the reviewer/the board/and the customer could read.


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen. -- CSIRT/Linux System Administrator
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed
in a naughty world. = Shakespeare. "The Merchant of Venice"