On Sun, Apr 25, 2021 at 04:37:42PM -0400, Mark H Weaver wrote:
> However, I think that longstanding practice is orthogonal to the
> question of whether licenses covering build system components can be
> omitted from the 'license' field.
[...]
> Specifically, I'm objecting to the idea that the 'license' field need
> only describe the files present in the build outputs.  For example, if a
> hypothetical package is licensed under Expat but uses a build system
> covered by the the Q Public License (QPL), I don't think we can omit
> mention of the QPL just because those components are only used during
> the build.
> 
> Does that make sense?

I think I understand what you are suggesting.

However, there is no precedent in Guix for mentioning the licenses of
build system components in package definitions.

I'd guess that almost every single package in Guix would need several
new licenses added to its field, and that field would become useless for
conveying the license of the program itself.