Snap package licenses

Tue Jan 31 19:33:31 UTC 2017

Ah, you're talking about the full SPDX spec. That is a completely
different beast. I don't know of anyone using that right now...

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 2:30 PM, Gustavo Niemeyer <gustavo at niemeyer.net> wrote:
> Yes, that's the custom and/or rule I mentioned. This is not the SPDX license
> expression format:
>
> https://spdx.org/spdx-specification-21-web-version
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 5:22 PM, Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> No, you're not missing something. AppStream doesn't really have a
>> great way to represent custom licenses. But license expressions are
>> supported, as you can see in this example[1]. I suspect the "proper"
>> way to handle it would be to have the license bundled in the metadata
>> when "Custom" or "Proprietary" is used, so that the resource is
>> available for review prior to installing. With the standardized
>> licenses, usually the software centers render hyperlinks that users
>> can click to see the terms.
>>
>> I'd potentially argue that BSD and MIT licenses would probably need to
>> be handled the same way, given that copyright owners are declared in
>> the license text.
>>
>> [1]:
>> https://gitlab.com/osslugaru/lugaru/blob/master/Dist/Linux/lugaru.appdata.xml
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 2:03 PM, Gustavo Niemeyer <gustavo at niemeyer.net>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Using the license ids from SPDX seems straightforward, and that's what
>> > AppStream seems to encourage. But it doesn't mention support for SPDX
>> > license expressions (has a custom and/or rule), or what to do on custom
>> > licenses. So the harmony seems shallow, if you see what I mean. Or am I
>> > missing something?
>> >
>> > On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 4:24 PM, Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> SUSE has their own list of non-standard references[1], but my
>> >> understanding is that SPDX is working on making this a bit more
>> >> flexible in this regard. This was one of the reasons we haven't
>> >> switched to it in Fedora (the other being the mismatch of BSD/MIT tags
>> >> to SPDX equivalents). AppStream metainfo files shipped with software
>> >> include the SPDX license tags[2].
>> >>
>> >> One of the reasons I personally favor the Fedora tags more is because
>> >> it's not obnoxious with dealing with classes of licenses. However,
>> >> AppStream does mandate SPDX, and harmonizing snap metadata with
>> >> AppStream metadata makes it easier to keep things sane and in sync,
>> >> especially if developers want to use their metainfo files as input for
>> >> generating parts of the snap metadata. Of course, maintaining harmony
>> >> does not imply that SPDX license tags need to be used in snap data,
>> >> only that some kind of automatic mapping from SPDX to another system
>> >> is available. Richard Hughes' appstream-glib (used by GNOME/Ubuntu
>> >> Software) has such a mechanism for going from Fedora/SUSE-classic to
>> >> SPDX[3], and the other way around is considerably simpler.
>> >>
>> >> [1]: https://github.com/openSUSE/obs-service-format_spec_file
>> >> [2]:
>> >>
>> >> https://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/chap-Quickstart.html
>> >> [3]:
>> >>
>> >> https://github.com/hughsie/appstream-glib/blob/master/libappstream-glib/as-utils.c#L555
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 11:43 AM, Gustavo Niemeyer
>> >> <gustavo.niemeyer at canonical.com> wrote:
>> >> > That's an interesting idea.  Is there a known repository for license
>> >> > texts
>> >> > which are not standard?  I see SPDX uses a LicenseRef-<ID> kind of
>> >> > reference, but it's not clear what that is referencing. Just another
>> >> > field
>> >> > inside the XML in the case of AppStream, I suppose?
>> >> >
>> >> > On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 9:58 PM, Neal Gompa <ngompa13 at gmail.com>
>> >> > wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >> On Thu, Jan 26, 2017 at 5:35 PM, Mark Shuttleworth <mark at ubuntu.com>
>> >> >> wrote:
>> >> >> >
>> >> >> > We should allow a plaintext field there for this situation. Yes,
>> >> >> > go
>> >> >> > ahead with "Other open source".
>> >> >> >
>> >> >>
>> >> >> It would probably make sense to support SPDX license tags and
>> >> >> expressions[1]. This is used in AppStream, so a great amount of
>> >> >> software is already classified in this manner. Furthermore, openSUSE
>> >> >> uses SPDX tags for their license metadata for packages, and Debian
>> >> >> uses a subset of it as part of the copyright file structure in
>> >> >> Debian
>> >> >> Source Control packaging.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> While we in Fedora use our own license tag list[2] that predates
>> >> >> SPDX
>> >> >> (used by a great deal of Linux distributions), we maintain a mapping
>> >> >> to SPDX for AppStream support.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Having verifiable license information (either Fedora style or SPDX
>> >> >> style) is also useful for ensuring things are "compatible" or
>> >> >> "desired" on a system, depending on whatever preference you may
>> >> >> have.
>> >> >>
>> >> >> [1]: https://spdx.org/licenses/
>> >> >> [2]:
>> >> >> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main#Software_License_List
>> >> >>
>> >> >> --
>> >> >> 真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!
>> >> >>
>> >> >> --
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>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > gustavo @ http://niemeyer.net
>> >> >
>> >> > --
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>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
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>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> > gustavo @ http://niemeyer.net
>> >
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>>
>>
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>>
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>
>
>
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>
> gustavo @ http://niemeyer.net
>
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-- 
真実はいつも一つ！/ Always, there's only one truth!