On 12/12/11 01:19, Jonathan Nieder wrote: > Charles Plessy wrote: > >> I would like to re-frame the discussion and remind that > [...] >> In the case of the (L)GPL, it is common practice to use the license notices as >> found in headers of files as if they were the actual license text. > > For what it's worth, I disagree, while I agree with Ximin Luo that > current format is somewhat inefficient in the cases mentioned. > > Perhaps a source of confusion is something Joerg wrote five years > ago[1]: > > | There are license headers, like the one used for GPL in the example below, you > | should use those. > > I continue to believe that what he meant is that such pre-made license > headers are good at covering their bases and that it is advisable to > take advantage of the work that was already done in writing them. For > example, the typical license headers explicitly mention that _you_ may > redistribute and modify the software, and they tend to include a > disclaimer of warranty. By contrast, a statement like > > | | On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License > | | can be found in the `/usr/share/common-licenses/GPL' file. > > does not actually say that that license applies to the software at > all! > Sorry, I didn't understand your point here. Are you saying it's better to include license notice as the actual text? I don't think "does not actually say that [..] applies [..] at all" is a problem - the File: stanza already takes care of that. For me, License: stanza is just a declaration of terms. The job of stating which terms actually apply to which WHO/WHAT (to use my original email's words) is for the File: stanza to take care of. Everything else that we've been discussing then follows naturally from this principle. > However, if I'm the only one that read the email that way, then I > would be happy to see this clarified in policy. (Well, I would be > unhappy actually, since it would mean a lot of work for me preserving > all the variations on license notices in packages I work with.) > > The rest of the use cases described should be easier to address: > > - In the current copyright-format, if you say "License: GPL-2+" or > "License: GFDL-1.1+", you have to say what that means. That is > probably worth changing in the future, for example by only > requiring the presence of at least one standalone paragraph > satisfying the license version constraint (e.g., "License: GPL-2" > or "License: GFDL-1.2"). I think it would be fine to delay that to > copyright-format 1.1. > > - The current copyright-format is unclear about how to document what > a license exception means in a standalone paragraph. I think that > should be fixed before release, for example by requiring a > standalone paragraph describing the license together with the > exception (e.g., "License: GPL-2+ with Font exception"). > > In a later release, a new "License-Exception" paragraph type > could be introduced. > > - Current practice is not to treat the list of copyright holders as > part of the license. I see no reason to explicitly document that > or change it. > I think it's important to document it at least, so that people don't mistakenly add WHO/WHAT information to the License: stanza. > - Copyright holders can be listed in the "Copyright" field. Other > authors can be listed in a "Comment" field when desirable. They > can be collated and do not need to be separated by file when a > "Files" stanza describes multiple files (unless some license > requirement says so, of course). I see no reason to change this. > > Sane? > > [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2006/03/msg00023.html -- GPG: 4096R/5FBBDBCE https://github.com/infinity0 https://bitbucket.org/infinity0 https://launchpad.net/~infinity0
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