Re: [PATCH] gnu: Add pioneers

[Jookia <166291@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Feb 15, 2016 at 08:21:04PM -0500, Leo Famulari wrote:
> > +    (home-page "http://pio.sourceforge.net/")
> > +    (license license:gpl2+)))
>
> Since the source files include the "any later version" clause, I changed
> this to GPL3+. I usually grep for 'later version' when COPYING indicates
> GPL2.

I don't like this and I think this is a bad idea. The project isn't licensed
under the GPLv3+, it's licensed under the GPLv2+. When people search for
packages and read licenses they're not going to be misinformed. I feel this is a
disservice to the users of Guix, and misleading at best or dishonest at worst.

You mentioned in IRC that this is supposed to be for the package that Guix
builds and distributes. Indeed, the Guix documentation says the license field is
for "The license of the package", not the license of the software in the
package. Yet the home-page field is "The URL to the home-page of the package",
and the synopsis field is "A one-line description of the package." 'package'
here means the upstream, not the Guix package. Logic says that the license is
for the software, and yet it's being misrepresented.

I'd much rather like a package manager that reliably tells me the license for
upstream software, but I have a feeling this is a sore political spot. I don't
even get why you'd distribute the package under a newer GPL- this makes packages
that were previously compatible incompatible!

I don't care for the politics, but I think at the very least the 'license' field
needs to be explicitly documented as not the license for the upstream software.

Jookia.