Bug#201883: base-files: Please include Zope Public License in /usr/share/common-licenses
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:31:51 +0200 (CEST), Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> said:
> reassign 201883 debian-policy thanks
> On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Luca - De Whiskey's - De Vitis wrote:
>> Package: base-files Version: 3.0.2 Severity: minor
>>
>> I'd like ZPL (Zope Public License) to be added to the list of
>> common license in Debian. I think that ZPL is common enough (at
>> least 10 package) to be included under /usr/share/common-licenses.
At least 10 packages? What is that, One tenth of one percent
of the packages? Shouldn't at least 10% of the packages in Debian use
this license before it be deemed ``common''? Or 5%?
Licenses popular outside Debian (MS licenses would lead that
fray ;-) are not relevant; the original idea was to reduce disk usage
due to massive duplication; and thus offsetting the fact that the
license was indirectly referenced with disk space savings.
The reason that all possible licenses are not in the common
license directory is that not including the license directly in
/usr/share/doc/<package> requires anyone looking for a license to
take an extra step to find it; and only a substantial saving in disk
space justifies that extra step.
Seems to me that in order for a license to be termed
``common'', it should indeed be common -- and some sizeable fraction
of Debian packages be available under the terms of that license (the
sizeable fraction to be decided upon, of course, but shouldn't it at
least 10%?)
__> grep-status -s Source '.' | sort -u | wc -l
566
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | wc -l
2247
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l 'GNU.+General' | wc -l
1195
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l Artistic | wc -l
225
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l 'Berkeley' | wc -l
93
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l 'GNU.+Library' | wc -l
111
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l 'GNU.+Lesser' | wc -l
93
__> find /usr/share/doc -type f -name copyright | \
xargs egrep -l 'Zope' | wc -l
1
Looking at my own machine, I can't assert that the license yet
meets that criteria.
Also, note the footnote in policy:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Why "common-licenses" and not "licenses"? Because if I
put just "licenses" I'm sure I will receive a bug report
saying "license foo is not included in the licenses
directory. They are not all the licenses, just a few
common ones. I could use /usr/share/doc/common-licenses
but I think this is too long, and, after all, the GPL
does not "document" anything, it is merely a license.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 10:05:36 -0500, "Luca <- De Whiskey's - De Vitis"
<luca@debian.org>> said:
> That leads me to another question: when a license is considered
> common? Would you base the term 'common' from the number of binary
> packages referring to a specific license or would you use source
> packages? And then, how many of them do i need to be able to ask for
> such an inclusion? A proportional or an absolute number?
Source packages seems right; licenses are applied to package
sources, not binaries.
So, if there are at least 5% of the source packages (or
whatever number emerges from the debate that is sure to follow), we
can include the license into common license. A nice, objective
criteria for admission ;-)
> I'm not sure this is the best way to handle common licenses: suppose
> that a developer asks for the inclusion of the foo license that
> seems to have become common among Debian packages (let's not define
> what 'common' is for a while), You include it and that would be good
> for a while, but what if licenses start to be really a lot (say 20)?
> Would you list all of them?
By the criteria above, I doubt if the number of licenses would
ever reach that number -- especially if we set the bar to be 10%.
> I propose to consider common any license that is used by more than X
> (i suggest X to be 15) absolute number of actively maintained source
> packages.
I strongly object to the dilution of the term common by
including every single licence in the common licenses, since it be
default ignores the trade off that created this policy in the first
place -- it should be easy to determine what the licance for a
package is, (less /usr/share/doc/a*/copyright, for example), and not
have to go chasing down other files for each one of them.
Common licenses should be common enough that one would not
have to chase down the links (I know what the GPL entails)
What does common mean anyway?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Belonging to or shared by, affecting or serving, all the
members of a class, considered together; general; public;
as, properties common to all plants; the common schools;
the Book of Common Prayer.
common
adj 1: belonging to or participated in by a community as a whole;
public; "for the common good"; "common lands are set
aside for use by all members of a community" [ant: {individual}]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From "belonging to all: to belonging to 10/10000 packages is a
far cry; and I am not being pedantic: I am willing to go from
"belonging to all" to belonging to a perceptible chunk, say, 10% of
all.
I think this proposal is a bad idea.
manoj
-
--
Work without a vision is slavery, Vision without work is a pipe dream,
But vision with work is the hope of the world.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
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