Bug#696185: [copyright-format] Please clarify what to use in License field for licenses not specifically mentioned

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Andrew Starr-Bochicchio wrote:

> --- a/copyright-format/copyright-format-1.0.xml
> +++ b/copyright-format/copyright-format-1.0.xml
> @@ -663,6 +663,14 @@ Copyright 2009, 2010 Angela Watts</programlisting>
>          license short names for unknown <varname>Format</varname> versions.
>        </para>
>        <para>
> +        For licenses which are not currently included in the list of standard
> +        short names, the maintainer may use any short name they find
> +        appropriate.

Sounds clear and is true.

> The license identifier used by the <link linkend="spdx">
> +        SPDX</link> in their <ulink url="http://spdx.org/licenses";>Open Source
> +        License Registry</ulink> may be used, but this is not mandatory in any
> +        way.

Such license identifiers may or may not be used? It's not clear to me
when reading this what it's asking me to do. I don't see much obvious
benefit to matching SPDX names for licenses not defined in the
copyright-format spec, so I'd suggest leaving this second sentence
out. Alternatively in some future version of the copyright-format spec
we could *require* that SPDX names be used.

Thanks,
Jonathan