From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Mickey Subject: Re: List of abbreviations for licenses Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:53:40 -0800 Message-ID: References: <87vcco2hgr.fsf@gnu.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:58687) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TeDvp-00074N-Qm for bug-guix@gnu.org; Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:54:14 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1TeDvo-0008Bb-Re for bug-guix@gnu.org; Thu, 29 Nov 2012 18:54:13 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87vcco2hgr.fsf@gnu.org> List-Id: Bug reports for GNU Guix List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-guix-bounces+gcggb-bug-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: bug-guix-bounces+gcggb-bug-guix=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: =?UTF-8?Q?Ludovic_Court=C3=A8s?= Cc: bug-guix@gnu.org On Thu, Nov 29, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Ludovic Court=C3=A8s wrote: > More importantly, licensing is not a science, and we can=E2=80=99t preten= d to > devise a universal =E2=80=9Clicense calculus=E2=80=9D. (This has been di= scussed at > length in the past on nix-dev.) > > Thus, I would start with a simple (guix licenses) module. I would > perhaps even omit the type, and use just plain strings to > start with. > > WDYT? Unsolicited advice incoming.. Licenses are a huge pain when you get into all the custom ones out there. This has also been discussed at length on arch-dev years ago. IIRC ArchLinux uses an array of strings for each package, and then when you build the package you get warnings about licenses that are unique/new. You then add the LICENSE file to the package so the warning goes away, and it gets placed in a common licenses directory. I don't quite remember the mechanics of how it checked this, and I'm sure it's changed by now. I think the important part here is if you use strings, have some way to check if someone is building a package with a new/undocumented license. Then the graph of license objects could be accomplished later, if you know you don't have misspellings like "LGLPv2" and stuff like it polluting the graph. // jeff