From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Some hard numbers on licenses used by elisp packages Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:55:34 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87shi4z7ps.fsf@bernoul.li> <87zic9zuof.fsf@bernoul.li> <877ezaajme.fsf@bernoul.li> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1500170186 20854 195.159.176.226 (16 Jul 2017 01:56:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 16 Jul 2017 01:56:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Jonas Bernoulli Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Jul 16 03:56:21 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYn7-0004j7-OU for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sun, 16 Jul 2017 03:56:13 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:43813 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYnA-00053K-96 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:56:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55116) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYma-000533-BH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:55:41 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYmZ-0005J8-In for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:55:40 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:40254) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYmU-0005Ca-Jp; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:55:34 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1dWYmU-0007Gi-2Q; Sat, 15 Jul 2017 21:55:34 -0400 In-reply-to: <877ezaajme.fsf@bernoul.li> (message from Jonas Bernoulli on Fri, 14 Jul 2017 21:44:41 +0200) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:216711 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] 500 (roughly) packages is a lot of packages, and checking them by hand would be a fair amount of work. The only way to check so many packages efficiently is with tools. But we don't need to study 500 packages to understand the _general causes_ for which packages show up as "unlicensed". I propose that people pick 10 of these packages, perhaps randomly, and study each of the 10 by hand. Does it have any license that the existing tools did not notice? If so, is there a way to fix them to notice that license? Was it a typo in the licence notice? Or was that package simply published with no license? 10 packages is a much smaller task. Small enough, I think, that there is no need to worry about making any special tools. It's enough to look at the source files. Once we understand what KINDS of problems appear among these "unlicensed" packages, I expect it will be clear what questions to pose for the other 500 or so "unlicensed" packages, and easy enough to write automatic tools to characterize almost all of them. Wha do you think of this approach? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.