Re: [SPAM:####] Re: [DEP-5] [patch] License table: more links and licenses.
Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> writes:
> Actually, I am starting to think that maintaining a long list of license
> shortnames in DEP-5, many of which refer to rarely used licenses, is
> perhaps too much effort. Since the list really should be shared with
> other projects (SPDX and Fedora especially), it would perhaps make most
> sense to refer to it instead of incorporating it in the spec.
> I would, however, keep a short list of shortnames for the versioned
> licenses in /usr/share/common-licenses (excluding BSD, plain GFDL, plain
> GPL, plain LGPL, plain Artistic): Apache-2.0, GFDL-1.2, GFDL-1.3, GPL-1,
> GPL-2, GPL-3, LGPL-2, LGPL-2.1, LGPL-3.
> What do others think?
I'm certainly fine with referring to a list elsewhere rather than
maintaining the list in DEP-5, although note that we then have a format
version ambiguity problem if the meaning of a keyword ever changes.
People following the older version of the list will claim compatibility
with the same version as people using a newer version of the list, which
could make keywords ambiguous.
I do think that having a standardized set of license keywords is fairly
important to one of the uses of DEP-5, namely automated analysis of
licenses.
I'm not sure how to resolve that. Having a list that's guaranteed to
never remove any keyword or change the meaning of any keyword after it's
made the list is probably the best approach, since then people don't have
to worry about the meaning changing after they've written the file.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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